Agnes Hasam, a family friend of the Alfred Olango, speaks to protesters gathered at the El Cajon Police Department headquarters to protest fatal shooting of an unarmed black man Tuesday by officers in El Cajon, California, U.S. September 28, 2016. REUTERS/Earnie Grafton
In the latest shooting, two officers responded to calls about an African-American man in his 30s walking in traffic and “not acting like himself,” according to police in El Cajon, a city of about 100,000 residents some 15 miles (24 km) northeast of San Diego.
Police did not immediately identify the victim, but local activists and friends named him as Ugandan-born Alfred Olango. They said he was mentally ill and that he may have been suffering a seizure in the moments before his death.
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El Cajon officers found Olango behind a restaurant at about 2 p.m. PDT (2100 GMT) on Tuesday and ordered him to remove his hand from his pocket. After he refused, one officer drew a firearm and the other readied a Taser device, police said.
Olango paced back and forth as the officers tried to talk to him with their weapons pointed at him, police said.
Police said Olango then pulled an object from his front pants pocket, placed both hands together and extended them toward an officer in “what appeared to be a shooting stance.”
The officers simultaneously shot and used the Taser on the man, who died after being taken to the hospital, police said.
No weapon was found at the scene, El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis told reporters. He did not say what the man was pointing.
“Now is a time for calm,” Davis said. “I implore the community to be patient with us, work with us, look at the facts at hand before making any judgment.”
Actually, I think it’s time for cops to explain why they think tasering and gunning someone down at the same time is now the thing to do. Cops everywhere, gunning people down, bearing more similarity to the bad old days of mob rule than any type of “law and order”. FFS, this has to stop, and no more moronic excuses of “I was scared”. Tasers incapacitate people, there’s no need to follow them up with any bullet, let alone a round of fatal ones. Out of control Keystone Cops, yeah, you’re doing a great fucking job out there.
If they’re that scared of anyone and anything why did they think joining the police was a good idea? Cowards in blue doesn’t come across as something to be proud of.
I love how the asshole police chief says “now is the time for calm”.
After we’ve murdered an innocent man for his skin color, it is time for calm. Fuck this guy.
Brave cops seem so easy to scare.
Well, they scare me -- but I am brave enough not to shoot at them.
Fear-triggered violence is the hallmark of a coward and an incompetent.
Saad:
It’s beyond infuriating. I don’t know what to say about it anymore, because every single fucking time a cop murders someone, the same damn thing is said. No, it’s not a time for calm. The time for calm is before yet another ass-headed cop pulls out a gun and murders someone.
Terence Crutcher was tased, too, and the reason given by the cop who murdered him, “I was all scaredy pants because he lowered his arms” -- fuckety fuck fuck, you stupid cop -- he had just been tased! Now people are expected to keep the position after someone jolts them full of electricity? Right.
Bang!! Ok, everyone, let’s be calm.
I do believe those cops got their cause/effect ass fucking backwards.
I have to admit that I am very glad to live in a region where both our local municipal and county law enforcement are making a visible and noticeable effort to establish and improve community relations in general. Given the most significant minorities around here are hispanics and Indians (multiple tribes), this is a good thing.
I had a chat with a Tucson cop not long ago, and he thinks BLM is a good thing and he said he’d be protesting with them if he lived where the protests are happening. He’s got a standing request to be part of the security for local protests (and given what I know of our police chief, I think the security would actually be security, and not trying to instigate trouble).
Why can’t more people just acknowledge that those they are serving are, well, people, like all of us?
CC:
Oh, hell if I know. I think there are some cops who are basically decent people, and trying to do the right thing, but even they are culpable, because they don’t do anything against all the bad cops. It’s like Redditt Hudson said:
Every single cop knows the bad cops; they know which ones are corrupt, which ones are bigots, which ones are bullies, which ones go home at night and beat the shit out of their partners. They know this, but nothing is ever done.