Vanessa Marquez, an actress best known for having played nurse Wendy Goldman on 27 episodes of ER, was shot and killed by police on Thursday after a confrontation turned violent.
She was 49 years old.
According to various outlets, police were called to perform a welfare check on Marquez yesterday, responding to a call just before noon about a woman who was suffering from seizures.
Per The South Pasadenan, a newspaper of record in the area, the phone call was placed by Marquez’s landlord.
Police later said at an evening press conference that they had been called to the woman’s residence in the past for help.
In this fatal case, however, Marquez pulled BB-type gun on the officers and then responded by shooting her once in the torso.
She was treated briefly at the scene and then rushed to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
“At the time [of the shooting] there was an LA County mental health clinician here with the officers,” Lt. Joe Mendoza said, adding:
“They began to communicate with her, she became very uncooperative and during that contact she armed herself with a handgun, she pointed it at the officers and an officer-involved shooting occurred.”
Marquez actually made headlines last fall when she accused George Clooney of sexual harassment.
She went on to say at the time that the famous actor actually blacklisted her after she made an accusation years ago on the set of ER, saying harassment was rampant in and around the legendary NBC drama.
Clooney even responded to the assertion via a statement that read:
“I had no idea Vanessa was blacklisted.
“I take her at her word. I was not a writer or a producer or a director on that show. I had nothing to do with casting. I was an actor and only an actor. If she was told I was involved in any decision about her career then she was lied to.
“The fact that I couldn’t affect her career is only surpassed by the fact that I wouldn’t.”
Mendoza, in the aforementioned press conference, went on to say that officers tried to help Marquez for about 90 minutes before she grabbed the weapon cited above.
He said the shooting transpired around 2 p.m. and that the woman “was undergoing some medical problems, some seizures; it appeared that the female was gravely disabled.”
Marquez also played the role of Ana Delgado in the film “Stand and Deliver.”
Following the end of her acting career, Vanessa was vocal on social media about her struggles with health issues, including terminal celiac disease, pulmonary embolism and osteoporosis.
She posted her final status update on Facebook on August 8, accusing Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey of hypocrisy for previously kicking her off Twitter for “naming his friend George Clooney at the beginning of the #Metoo movement in October.
“But allowing the incendiary InfoWars host and notorious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to remain on the platform.”
Marquez was a long-time member of TCM Party, which is a group of cinephiles passionate about classic movies.
In response to her passing, the official TCM Party Twitter account write:
I am devastated to say that Vanessa Marquez @R2DivaLA was shot and killed by the South Pasadena police on Thursday afternoon.
I met her through #TCMParty, I hope she knew how much we loved her and I hope too that she is at peace
We feel the same way.
May she rest in peace.
