Police shoot homeless man dead in Los Angeles
US police have shot and killed a homeless man during an altercation in central Los Angeles, in an incident caught on video.
The graphic film shows a violent struggle between the man and several officers in the city’s Skid Row area.
Police say that three officers opened fire after the man tried to grab a gun from an officer.
Witnesses said the dead man was known as Africa and had been homeless after treatment for mental illness.
The LA police department said officers had been responding to reports of a robbery and had attempted to use a Taser to subdue the suspect but he had “continued fighting and resisting”.
No other gun was recovered at the scene, LA police commander Andrew Smith said.
Last year, highly publicised killings of black men sparked weeks of protests in the US.
Hours after the latest shooting, the hashtag #LAPDShooting was trending on Twitter in the US.
The video begins with what appears to be a black man swinging punches at four police officers in daylight, near the tents and cardboard of a pavement homeless camp. Two other officers run up to join their colleagues.
As the man is knocked to the ground, a woman can be seen picking up a fallen police baton and a voice seems to shout “Give me my stick! Give me my stick!”
Several police officers turn to tackle the woman, in the foreground of the video, and her detention partially obscures what is happening with the man on the ground.
A voice can be heard shouting “Drop the gun!” four times before five shots ring out.
The police officers step away from the suspect lying on the ground. No-one approaches the body again for one minute and 13 seconds, by which time police reinforcements have arrived.
The man taking the video can be heard swearing as he records it.
After the shooting, he can be heard saying. “Ain’t nobody got no [obscenity] gun. I’m gonna record this [obscenity]… They just shot that man right here, man, they just shot that [obscenity] man right here, yeah.” BBC
