Jeffrey Stenroos, the officer accused of faking his own shooting by claiming he was attacked by an assailant outside El Camino Real High School which set-off a wide and very expensive manhunt, is now saying his gun went off accidentally, according to LA Now.
Stenroos gave police several contradictory statements about what went down that day, began behaving strangely after the faux shooting, and began avoiding the scheduling of an incident interview, which ultimately led investigators to suspect he was the "shooter" they had been looking for all along.
Detectives on the case are still trying to sort out whether the shooting really was an accident or if it was "in some way connected to his professional or personal life."
As detectives comb through physical evidence from the scene and conduct interviews with people in Stenroos' life to figure out what really happened, a senior LAPD official says "Right now, we have more questions than answers."
Last week, a source said Stenroos admitted to the hoax, but the "accidental shooting" angle is another new twist in the very slippery slope that is this case. On Friday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to file a lawsuit against Stenroos to demand he reimburse the city for costs of the unnecessary manhunt he set in motion with his fake shooter story.
