A police spokesman says the man was suspected of robbery. In video taken by a bystander, he clearly is struggling with officers and resisting arrest. The spokesman says the man tried to grab an officer’s gun, and that’s why they shot him. But the civilian witness who recorded the incident says he “saw no justification” for the killing, according to CNN. (You can view the video — which is getting enormous traction; it’s already been viewed millions of times — here.)
Cops sometimes lie to justify police shootings and other actions that generate controversy — and potential legal consequences. We know that. But if you listen carefully to this video, you can hear a voice — certainly that of a cop — shouting “Drop the gun!” moments before the shooting begins. The bystander says he “never saw him reaching for a gun.”
This incident was initially reported as a police shooting of a mentally-ill homeless man outside a Los Angeles rescue mission in a poverty-stricken neighborhood. But if this man was a criminal mingling with homeless people, and despite being tased he grabbed an officer’s gun, this case is simply not in the same category as Eric Garner, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, and a number of other police killings of unarmed citizens that sparked debate and protests around the country.
On the other hand, he’s clearly flailing in the video after being tased, and if the officers interpreted an arm movement as threatening that wasn’t, that would transform an arguably justified killing into a very questionable one. Today’s news reports say three officers shot at the man. Probably at least two, and possibly all three, reacted reflexively to the shout, “Drop the gun!” Thus, one way or another, what it boils down to is that whoever shouted those words effectively killed him.
I think we need to wait and see with this one, but the reaction of bystanders who saw it happen from close proximity appears to be that it was a hair-trigger, snap-judgment, unnecessary and unjustified killing. I’m reserving judgment for now.
1st Update: “The man fatally shot by Los Angeles police officers ‘repeatedly refused to comply with officers demands,’ and evidence shows he grabbed at a police officer’s pistol before he was shot, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck told reporters. Beck showed photos of the officer’s weapon that showed alterations he said were consistent with a struggle over the weapon,” ABC News reported. Also, “At least two of the officers had been through the most extensive mental illness training offered by the department and had experience working with the largely homeless population of the area, known as Skid Row.”
Alterations? What alterations? How does touching a pistol alter it, in a way that creates “evidence” that a certain person touched it? As ABC points out, “Whether or not the man tried grabbing one of the officers’ weapons is going to be at the heart of the investigation.” You have witnesses, you have video, you have the cops’ say-so (which I wouldn’t take at face value), and now you have a police spokesman saying there’s “evidence” the guy “grabbed” an officer’s gun because the gun is “altered,” which sounds like some kind of black magic to me.
2nd Update: LAPD’s chief said in a Monday afternoon news conference that the man reached for an officer’s “holster,” and contends one of the officers said “he has my gun” several times, CBS News reported, which noted parallels with the 2014 case of Ezell Ford, another LAPD shooting. The chief said two of the officers were wearing body cameras that will provide “crucial perspective” on what happened, and also said two officers were injured in the melee.