KTLA in Los Angeles has very disturbing video from this afternoon that shows two L.A. County Sheriff’s deputies shooting many, many times at a man who is walking away from them at an Arco gas station in Lynwood.
Police report merely that the incident happened, have offered no information yet on the dead man or what crime he committed that led up to the officers opening fire on him as he walked away from them, at a normal pace.
KTLA reports counting 30 shots.
After being shot, he continued crawling away, and they continued shooting. (It isn’t obvious from the video that both are shooting, though they are both in a shooting stance.) This is at a gas station that appears to be open for business as usual.
Video at this link, as is this summation:
The unidentified man was pronounced dead at the scene after being struck by gunfire, sheriff’s officials confirmed.
No deputies were injured in the incident, said Lt. Allen with the sheriff’s Century Station.
It was not known why sheriff’s deputies first responded to the scene, or what led up to the shooting.
UPDATE: ABC TV is reporting that authorities found a .45 weapon on the scene, and that the suspect was prior to the video shooting it in the air, though there is no video evidence of it being brandished or used to threaten to harm anyone at the time the officers shot him.
More from the Los Angeles Times on why the police felt the shooting was necessary:
Deputies were responding to a call of a man walking around firing a gun in the air, said Cmdr. Keith Swensson, of the sheriff’s department. He said the suspect was holding the gun when he was shot…
Sid Heal, a former Sheriff’s Department commander who testifies in use-of-force court cases, reviewed the video Saturday.
He said the shooting would be high troubling unless the man had a gun. He said officers must show there was an immediate danger to themselves or the public to justify deadly force.
If he did have a gun, Heal said, the deputies could argue their force was justified because it incident took place on a busy street.
A press conference will be held Sunday at 11 a.m. at the Hall of Justice.
Video now linkable via Youtube:
Brian Doherty is a senior editor at Reason magazine and author of Ron Paul’s Revolution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired(Broadside Books).
https://reason.com/blog/2015/12/12/la-county-sheriffs-deputies-shoot-man-in
Looks like a pretty far distance to be one handing it.
It’s very possible that this kind of crap has been happening forever, and we’re only finding out about these incidents recently (over the last couple of years) because they want us to fear the police.
Of course this strategy may backfire, and result in a lot of dead cops, but if a lot of cops are killed as a result of this, that only works toward their goal of bringing in NATO or foreign troops to “restore order”.
http://www.killedbypolice.net/
J.R., how long does it take to re-load? If that’s what we face, so be it. I’m not takin’ this for one minute. Can’t hardly type comments anymore with the current c bugs I got. I’m hoping for a miracle that, it appears, only we can make happen.
(I gotta do something about this PC problem. It only took me 6-7 minutes to type this sentence. I’m iencing thist, if youcn decipher.) Iery annoying.
J.R., you’re once again on the money. These bastards stood there in broad daylight in front of everyone and murdered this guy and that was the first thing i thought, that they WANT to instill fear of police. They didnt take any cover or anything that showed they were in fear of their life, just stood there and shot and even took time to reload in front of everyone while no one did anything and thats the way it always is. This has to stop. they want to crackdown on us and they will whether people fight back or not.
the pay must be more lucrative than their salary