WARNING: Graphic Content
Cops in Los Angeles fatally shot a homeless man they scuffled with in broad daylight in downtown L.A.’s Skid Row on Sunday, according to a disturbing video of the incident that a bystander later posted to social media.
Several cops struggled with a man, whose name hasn’t been released, in a pile of tents and sleeping materials on the 540 block of South San Pedro St. at 11:36 a.m. in the footage (with extremely graphic language) that the witness uploaded to Facebook, KCAL-TV reported.
The police officers wrestle the man to the ground after he throws a wild punch at them in the video. But, shortly after one of the cops shouts out, “Drop the gun. Drop the gun,” five shots ring out and the man lies motionless on the ground, according to the footage.
Some other eyewitnesses told the Los Angeles Times that the man, who, they knew as “Africa,” and who may have been fighting with someone else in his tent when the cops arrived to the area in response to a robbery call, had reached for one of the officers’ service weapons.
A local also noted a municipal law requiring tents to be removed from the sidewalk during daylight hours, according to the Times.
The resident, who cited his name as Booker T. Washington, said simply, “This man got shot over a tent.”
The man was pronounced dead at a hospital not long after the shooting, a police spokesman told the Times. The spokesman, LAPD Sgt. Barry Montgomery, added that the cops had used a Taser at some point in the scrap.
“Upon their arrival, they made contact with the suspect, and during that contact, an altercation occurred,” Montgomery, who noted that LAPD’s investigation of the shooting is ongoing, told KCAL.
As reported by NYDailynews