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A long-serving Catholic bishop was shot and killed in Los Angeles on Saturday, according to the church and officials.
Auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell, 69, ” has passed away unexpectedly,” said Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez in a statement. “It is a shock and I have no words to express my sadness.”
The LA County Sheriff’s Department told local media that a shooting happened at around 1 p.m. in the 1500 block of Janlu Avenue. When officials arrived, they found a man who was suffering from an apparent gunshot wound to the chest and was later pronounced dead.
The office later confirmed that the victim was identified as O’Connell, who was named to his Catholic Church position by Pope Francis in 2015. He served the Los Angeles area for about 45 years, the church said.
While Gomez did not elaborate on O’Connell’s cause of death, he said that O’Connell was “a man of deep prayer” and “a peacemaker with a heart for the poor and the immigrant, and he had a passion for building a community where the sanctity and dignity of every human life was honored and protected.
