LOS ANGELES (OSV News) — Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop David G. O’Connell, a native of Ireland who spent most of his four decades as a priest ministering in LA’s inner city, was shot and killed Feb. 18 in his Hacienda Heights home, a neighborhood east of Los Angeles. His death is being investigated as a homicide, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles early Feb. 19.
“We learned early this morning from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office that they have determined that the death of Auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell yesterday was a homicide,” Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles said in a statement released Feb. 19. “We are deeply disturbed and saddened by this news.”
In a news release issued Feb. 19, the Sheriff’s department said that deputies had responded to a medical emergency on the 1500 block of Janlu Avenue in Hacienda Heights and found the bishop suffering from a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced Monday that a man was taken into custody in connection with the shooting death Bishop O’Connell.
At the national level, Bishop O’Connell was serving as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
But despite his long list of accolades and accomplishments, Bishop O’Connell was known as a low-key priest with a down-to-earth demeanor who spoke the love of Jesus with his Irish brogue.
