Los Angeles cops cleared in death of homeless black man
Source: The Associated Press
By BRIAN MELLEY
Dec. 1, 2016 8:33 PM EST
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three Los Angeles police officers who fatally shot a black homeless man on Skid Row last year will not face criminal charges because they acted in self-defense, according to a report released Thursday by the district attorney.
Prosecutors determined that the shooting of Charly "Africa" Keunang was justified because he grabbed a rookie officer's gun during a struggle that ended when he was shot five times March 1, 2015.
"The officers' reasonable assessments of the threat posed by Keunang were as grave and imminent as the officers perceived," prosecutors wrote in a memo. "Keunang posed a high likelihood of killing officers and civilians at the very instant that he was shot."
Officers were responding to reports that Keunang, 43, a Cameroon national, had threatened another man living on the street in the section of the city teeming with homeless people.
A lawyer representing Keunang's family in a $20 million lawsuit disputed that the homeless man ever had hold of an officer's gun. Attorney Joshua Piovia-Scott said the officers who were trained to de-escalate conflicts instead initiated a confrontation that led to the killing.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/34bad0fd11034ab59d0656677ab446f8/los-angeles-cops-cleared-death-homeless-black-man
I'd like to see that tape!
= new reply since forum marked as read
