POLICE KILL ARMED MAN STUN DEVICE FAILS TO STOP APPROACH.

Byline: Greg Botonis Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Sheriff's deputies answering a domestic violence call shot and killed a 31-year-old man when he came toward them wielding a butcher knife, officials said Wednesday.

The man, who had cut his estranged wife on her hand before deputies arrived, was hit with a Taser electrical stunning device, but he continued to approach deputies with the knife raised, telling them they'd have to kill him, so they fired, officials said.

``Sometimes (the Taser) doesn't produce the effect that we want and that is to immobilize them,'' homicide Lt. Jack Jordan said Wednesday. ``With some people, it just doesn't stop them.''

The man, identified as Luis Fabian Delgado of Van Nuys, had separated from his wife just after Christmas, deputies said. The woman was treated at a hospital for the laceration to her hand and sent home.

The couple had reportedly run a home day-care operation or foster home for small children and had children of their own, deputies said.

``He showed up unannounced and unexpected last night,'' Jordan said. ``There's still no indication as to what started all this.''

The shooting occurred about 10:40 p.m. outside a home in the 500 block of Kettering Avenue in Lancaster. Deputies said they had received a call that a woman was being threatened by her husband with a knife.

The man came out of the house brandishing a knife just as deputies arrived. They ordered him to stop but the man began walking toward the deputies with the knife raised.

One deputy fired a Taser stun gun - which emits a electric charge through wires attached to darts - and struck the man, but he continued toward them as if it had no effect, a Sheriff's Department statement said.

As the deputy tried to retrieve another Taser, the man moved toward him, raised the knife and said, ``You're gonna have to kill me,'' the statement said.

Fearing for the safety of the deputy, other deputies opened fire on the man.

He was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. He was shot multiple times, the Coroner's Office said.

Deputies said they were told the man had been making suicidal statements before they arrived.

Officials said they have requested that the Coroner's Office conduct toxicology tests to see if he was under the influence of any narcotics or alcohol.

The death had similarities to three murder-suicides last month in the Antelope Valley and also to a phenomenon known as suicide-by-cop,'' in which individuals deliberately provoke police to kill them - most often by hostage taking, domestic violence and workplace violence, experts say.

All three murder-suicides last month were committed by men in failed relationships: two had been told by their wives they wanted to separate and the third had been left by his girlfriend. One man killed his two daughters; the others killed the women who broke up with them.

People who commit murder-suicides, like those who commit suicide, almost always have a diagnosable psychological disorder, whether it has been identified or not, said Pam Farkas, a licensed clinical social worker and board member of American Foundation of Suicide Prevention.