14 DAY TRIAL // This past weekend, police officers in the city of Los Angeles in the US shot and killed an unarmed homeless man. The confrontation was caught on camera and the footage showing the cops shooting the man went viral almost as soon as it was posted online.
As it always happens when such incidents occur, some say that the homeless man was clearly a threat and that the LAPD cops did right when they gunned him down. Others regard the shooting as no more and no less than another instance of uncalled-for police brutality.
The cold, hard facts
On Sunday, the police officers involved in this shooting responded to a robbery report in downtown Los Angeles, on San Pedro St. When they got to the scene of the crime, they found the homeless man sleeping in a tent set up on the pavement.
Word has it that, before the cops arrived in the area, the man had been fighting with somebody inside his tent. When the police officers asked him to step out of his improvised home so that they could question him, the homeless man refused to comply.
The cops used a stun gun to force him out of his tent. When finally out in the street, the homeless man turned against the LAPD officers and attacked them. He tried to hit them with his fists and his legs, and even attempted to take one of their weapons.
At one point, the man came dangerously close to actually getting his hands on a gun. When this happened, three of the cops pulled out their weapons and shot him. The man collapsed and, despite being rushed to a local hospital, passed away shortly after.
Apparently, this was not the homeless man's first run-in with the law. On the contrary, police officers say that they would often fight with him over his habit of leaving his tent in place during the day, although the city's current laws say that homeless people can only sleep on the pavement between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.
It is understood that, during this confrontation, two LAPD officers were injured as well. They were taken to a local medical center as well, where doctors treated their wounds. Since they only suffered minor injuries, they did not have to be admitted to hospital.
What witnesses say
The cops who shot and killed the homeless man insist that they acted in self-defense. 53-year-old Lonnie Franklin, who happened to witness the scene from across the street, maintains that the man was never a threat and says that the officers should have found some other way to restrain him.
“That man never was a threat,” Lonnie Franklin told the press in an interview. “The amount of officers present at the time could have subdued him,” the woman further commented on this shooting. Otherwise put, what the cops did was take the easy way out.
An investigation is now ongoing and the cops' superiors promise to get to the bottom of this affair as soon as possible. The New York Daily News has the video showing the clash between the homeless man and the police officers. Fair warning: the footage is pretty shocking, so proceed with caution.
