A man suspected of robbery was shot and killed by the police in Los Angeles on Sunday during a confrontation that was captured on video in a downtown homeless encampment.
The four-minute video of the fatal encounter and its aftermath was taken by a bystander and uploaded to Facebook. The video starts with the man swinging his arms at four police officers who have him surrounded on a footpath lined with tents.
An officer drops his nightstick and rains punches on the man, knocking him to the ground.
The officer then straddles the man, who continues to struggle as two more officers arrive.
In the video, a woman standing nearby picks up the nightstick and appears to aim it at the officers.
Two officers wrestle her to the ground and place her in handcuffs. While the remaining officers struggle with the suspect, the buzzing sound of a Taser can be heard and the officer straddling the man is heard saying, “Drop the gun.”
The officer repeats the command three times before a shot is fired, followed by four more rounds. Two officers can be seen with their weapons drawn as the man lies motionless on the footpath.
The man was pronounced dead at a hospital, Sgt Barry Montgomery of the Los Angeles Police Department said at a news conference.
The man was not identified by the police on Sunday. On Sunday evening, the police said they were investigating what had prompted the shooting.
A witness told The Los Angeles Times that the man had reached for an officer’s weapon.
The Los Angeles Police Department said it had received a call about a robbery inside a tent in the Skid Row section of downtown. When the officers arrived, they found the suspect, who was uncooperative and tried to fight them, Mr Montgomery said.
The police said they were aware of the video on Sunday, but did not say how many officers had been involved in the shooting or how many had fired their service weapons. Mr Montgomery said the officers had used a Taser before the man was shot. No police officers were injured during the fight, he said.
“It’s going to be a long investigation, and we will get to the bottom of it,” Mr Montgomery said. In the video, immediately after the shooting, bystanders can be heard yelling profanity at the officers and asking why the police had resorted to lethal force.
Witnesses told the Los Angeles Times that the deceased is known on the street as “Africa”, and that he had been there for four or five months.
One witness told the Los Angeles Times he saw the man swinging at police, then heard one of them shout “He’s got my gun!” before the shots were fired.
New York Times and PA