man is shot and killed by police in califonia

LOS ANGELES — The police shot and
killed an unarmed black man in South Los
Angeles on Monday night, the Los Angeles
Police Department said. The police said
that the man, whom the department did
not identify, had tackled an officer and
lunged for the weapon in his holster
before being shot at by both the officer
and his partner.
Family members told a local television
station on Tuesday that the man was Ezell
Ford, a 24-year-old whose “mental
problems” they said were well known to
the police. Cmdr. Andrew Smith, a
spokesman for the Los Angeles Police
Department, said that while he knew that
the man had some kind of arrest record,
it was unclear what the arrests had been
for or whether the police had any
evidence of mental illness.
According to the police, the man was shot
around 8:20 p.m. after a struggle during
an investigative stop. After the two
officers approached him, Commander
Smith said, the man “spun around, tucked
his head toward the officer’s gun and
basically tackled him to the ground, trying
to grab at the weapon.” The partner shot
at the man while the lead officer relied on
his “backup weapon” to shoot, he added.
The man was taken to a hospital but died
from his injuries.
A woman who identified herself to the
television station, KTLA, as Tritobia Ford,
the victim’s mother, said that her son had
been lying on the ground and complying
with the officer’s commands when he was
shot three times.
“My son was a good kid,” Ms. Ford said.
“He didn’t deserve to die the way he did.”
Mr. Ford is the 16th person to have been
shot at by the city’s police this year,
although in two cases shots were fired
but did not injure anyone, according to
Liliana Preciado, a spokeswoman for the
Police Department. While some police
cars in Los Angeles are equipped with
video cameras, the cars assigned to the
area where Mr. Ford was shot have not
yet received them, she said.
The police have not released the name of
the officer involved, but Ms. Preciado said
they would most likely do so once a
preliminary investigation was completed
this week.
Friends and family members of Mr. Ford
are planning a protest in front of the
Police Department headquarters on
Sunday.
As with all shootings that involve officers,
the case will be reviewed by the
department’s force investigation division,
as well as the inspector general and the
Board of Police Commissioners, to
determine whether the shooting was
within the guidelines for the use of force