Family sues Downey over fatal stabbing outside library

DOWNEY – Relatives of a man who was fatally stabbed while checking on his electric car as it was being charged outside the Downey city library in 2025 sued the city, alleging the municipality was on notice the lot was unsafe since a police officer was killed there a decade earlier.

The victim, Reinaldo Jesus Lefonts, 68, was charging his car at an EV station outside the city library last Sept. 13 when a homeless man fatally stabbed him, according to the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit filed by his widow, Amalia Menendez-Lefonts, and the couple’s two adult sons.

The location had a well-documented, chronic history of criminal activity amounting to 675 calls for service up until the day before Lefonts’ death, including arrests, assaults, robberies, sex crimes, arson, larceny, narcotics offenses, criminal threats, missing people, domestic disputes, and other serious public safety matters, the suit states.

In November 2015, Downey Police Officer Ricardo Galvez was fatally shot while sitting in his personal vehicle in the same Brookshire Avenue parking lot, according to the suit.

“The city was well aware, and had been aware for years, that the lot presented a heightened and foreseeable risk of criminal violence to members of the public,” according to the suit.

A representative for the city of Downey did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the suit brought Friday.

The suit further states that as emergency personnel tended to Lefonts, a second homeless man stepped into an unattended ambulance and drove away from the scene. The man was later arrested after the ambulance crashed into a parked car in Alhambra.

The man who allegedly stabbed Lefonts had an extensive criminal history and had been arrested a day before for trespassing in the civic center, but was released by the DPD and returned to the parking lot, the suit states.

Prior to the attack, Lefonts received a notice on his phone that his car, which he had left in the lot to be charged, was being broken into and he rode his motorcycle to the civic center to check on it, the suit states.

Less than 20 days before Lefonts’ death, the Downey City Council received a report on homeless concerns and discussed the public safety implications at city facilities, and in a separate session, city leaders discussed homeless outreach, meaning the council, mayor and police command staff were all aware of the need for more security in the parking lot area, according to the suit.

The suit names as co-defendants Police Chief Scott Loughner, Fire Chief Anthony Hildebrand, City Manager Roger Bradley, Public Works Director Matthew Baumgardner and RMI International Inc. security company.

The suit alleges Paramount-based RMI failed to provide sufficient protection in the lot where the retired UCI Medical Center lab worker was attacked despite a security contract with the city, according to the suit.

RMI is owned by former Downey mayor Rick Rodriguez.