On March 1st, several Los Angeles Police Department officers shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man living on Skid Row for trying to reach for one of the officer’s gun.
According to the article, “Coroner officially releases identity of homeless man killed by LAPD,” LAPD officers were responding to a 911 call made from the Skid Row area. As they walked on their way to the area of the 911 call, the officers encountered a homeless man, later identified as 43-year old Charly Leundeu Keunang.
There is much debate about the justification of the shooting of this man, and the cameras taking video of the incident are of crucial importance in finding out what really happened to the mentally ill, homeless man.
There are three cameras that recorded the incident, one from an eye witness’s cell phone and two videos from separate body cameras placed on two of the officers involved in the altercation.
From the video taken by one of the eye witness’s mobile device, it starts with the officers walking down the street right to where the man was laying down on the floor.
Somehow, the officers and Keunang get into an altercation, which leads to the officers struggling and wrestling to get Keunang down to the ground, after the officers had tried to arrest him.
One of the officers, in an attempt to restrain Keunang, tased him, which appeared to have no immediate effect on Keunang.
At one point, the officers claim that Keunang tried in desperation to reach for an officer’s gun, at which point several officers fired shots directly into Keunang’s body. In the video, it’s hard to clearly see when Keunang reached for the officer’s gun, because of the huge struggle and number of officers around Keunang.
As the sound of gunshots rang down the street, the screams and shouts of pedestrians followed closely behind in succession.
With only one video available, it’s hard to indefinitely see and understand everything that happened.
The lack of hard evidence, simply leaving the video up to interpretation, has created individual opinions as to what really happened based on what people see from the video.
Even though there is no solid evidence that the officers acted irrationally in dealing with the homeless man, this incident increased fear and anger toward police in the Los Angeles area.
Reports from CBS say that since March 11, there have been over 20 witnesses of the incident who have come to the LAPD, willing to share their personal accounts on the events they observed during the incident.
However, two crucial pieces of evidence, the videos taken by two of the officers’ body cameras, have yet to be released to the public.
Until these videos are released, no one can know for sure what really happened during the incident.
According to LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, he has viewed the videos, but is choosing to withhold the videos from the public for the time being, letting the investigation continue on until more evidence has been presented.
Despite what is observed by the cameras, police officers, and witnesses, incidents like these continue to create distrust between the police force and some of the citizens of the U.S.
The sooner the complete truth is unveiled regarding the incident, the sooner police officers will come to regain the trust of the Americans who question the actions of police.