A Los Angeles police officer acted lawfully when he fatally shot a knife-wielding Guatemalan day laborer last year in an encounter that triggered days of unrest, the LAPD’s oversight body ruled Tuesday.

Bracing for the possibility that the ruling by the Los Angeles Police Commission could ignite another round of violent protests in the Westlake neighborhood where the man was shot, LAPD officials preemptively dispatched a large contingent of officers to the area in the hours before the decision was announced.

[Updated at 1:07 p.m.: The scene of the shooting was quiet after the ruling was announced, but the Southern California Immigration Coalition planned to hold a rally there at 5 p.m. to protest the ruling.

Marcelino Ponce, a security guard, was taking a stroll along 6th Street and Union Avenue on Tuesday afternoon when he heard about the commission's ruling. He only partially agreed.

"I think both were at fault," said the 45-year-old, who lives down the street from where the shooting happened. "The man should have listened to the authorities, and the authorities shouldn't have taken that kind of action."

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the officers' union, released a statement commending the commission and Beck for "looking at the facts ... and standing behind the officers who protected the community from an intoxicated, knife-wielding man.

"If you don’t want to get shot by a police officer, don’t try to stab one with a knife," union leaders said in the statement.]

The killing occurred on a Sunday afternoon in September, when Officer Frank Hernandez, a 13-year veteran assigned to a bicycle unit in the LAPD’s Rampart Division, responded to a report of a man threatening passers-by with a knife.

At the corner of 6th Street and Union Avenue in the heart of the densely populated Latino immigrant neighborhood, Hernandez and two other officers encountered 37-year-old Manuel Jamines.