June 17, 2019-Man killed in Corona Costco shooting was a ‘gentle giant,’ cousin says

A 32-year-old man shot dead by an off-duty Los Angeles police officer inside a Corona Costco was mentally disabled and described Sunday by a cousin a  “gentle giant,” while the man’s parents were the two people critically wounded by the same officer, the cousin said.

Kenneth French, 32, died Friday night at the discount store. Corona police said Saturday their investigation showed French had assaulted the officer in an unprovoked confrontation.

The cousin, Rick Shureih, said the family is shocked, and looking for answers.

The off-duty police officer has not been publicly named and could not be reached for comment on Sunday. He was not in custody.

The officer works in LAPD’S Southwest Division, the department said. It is conducting an administrative investigation of the incident, according to Corona police. The Corona Police Department also said its investigators are working with the Riverside County District Attorney’s office in evaluating the shooting.

French’s parents, Russell French and Paola French, remained in an intensive care unit Sunday, said Shureih, who said his aunt and uncle accompanied Kenneth French “Everywhere. Everywhere he goes. Every family trip.

“He just goes with the flow, he’s a gentle giant,” Shureih said of his cousin during an interview in his Riverside County-area home, located east of Corona, on Sunday. Shureih lives a few miles from his aunt and uncle’s house, where Kenneth also lived.

Kenneth French was “non-violent, non-aggressive, non-verbal,” and “he has to be pretty much monitored,” Shureih said, still speaking of his cousin in the present tense during the interview. “He’s not the kind to trade words, so I don’t believe that a verbal confrontation happened.”

No one answered the door at the French’s home Sunday, where an American flag flew on a pole out front. Next-door neighbor Marlon Calimlim said he only learned of Kenneth’s disability when he heard it on news reports after the shooting.

“They are a very nice couple…I can’t believe that a policeman would fire seven to eight shots,” he said, referring to the number of shots that Costco shoppers told reporters they heard in the store.

Calimlim said Kenneth French had left the family home in a run on Thursday, with the mother and father following, but when father and son came back, Russell had his arm around Kenneth’s shoulder and said, “We just took a little jog.”

The neighbor said he could not recall Kenneth French ever challenging anyone or being aggressive. “They have been here four or five years. There was never an incident like that,” Calimlim said. Read more