Three LAPD officers opened fire shooting and an unarmed homeless man after attempts to tazer him failed. The suspect had reportedly attacked a transient.
Homeless man attacked transient before police shot him
By GALE HOLLAND, KATE MATHER, SARAH PARVINI AND RICHARD WINTON contact the reporters
An enhanced version of a video recording of Los Angeles police officers fatally shooting a homeless man on skid row Sunday appears to show the man's hand reaching in the direction of one officer's waistband.
A Times' review of the tape shows the officer quickly pulling away at that moment. Then, three of his colleagues open fire on the man.
It was difficult to determine whether the man's hand actually touched the officer's weapon.
Los Angeles police have said the shooting occurred during a struggle for one of the officer's weapons. But none of the videos made public so far definitively show that part of the altercation.
"That man never was a threat," said Lonnie Franklin, 53, who said he was across the street when the shooting occurred. "The amount of officers present at the time could have subdued him."
It was witnesses who identified the dead man by his street name, "Africa," and said he'd been living in a tent on skid row for a few months after spending a long stretch in a mental health facility.
The LAPD has struggled for years to effectively police downtown's expansive skid row, which is a frequent destination for people with severe mental illnesses.
"We have to deal with the aftermath of a system that's failed," Officer Deon Joseph, a 16-year skid row beat cop, said Sunday.
Why do these situations escalate so quickly concluding in a volley of shots coming form multiple officers instead of a single or at most a two shots being fired? Is it because of the suspects' is seen as a member of a troublesome marginalized group?
Yes our mental healthcare system is a shambles in this country, partially transforming these "skid rows" and other locations where the homeless gather into open air hospital wards for the mentally ill. Care of the mentally ill is a state responsibility in the US and the states efforts to cope with the mentally ill range from woefully inadequate to shockingly inhumane.
This is another disturbing instance of multiple police officers quickly resorting to deadly force against an person of color, continuing a pattern of police quickly and reflexively resorting to excessive force across the country, when their sheer numbers should have allowed them to overpower a suspect without touching their guns.