Protests erupt after US police shoot dead another black man in Los Angeles

The US police shot dead a 29-year-old black man on Monday after a violent altercation, saying he tried to flee on foot after Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies tried to stop him for an unspecified vehicle code violation. The death of 29-year-old Dijon Kizzee has sparked fresh outrage in the country against police brutality.

The Los Angeles police said that Kizzee punched one deputy when officers caught him and that he had a handgun that he dropped during a violent altercation.

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“The deputies noticed he dropped some clothing items [during scuffle] from his hand and also had a black semi-automatic handgun, at which time a deputy-involved shooting occurred,” Lieutenant Brandon Dean told reporters.

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Dean said it is not clear yet whether Kizzee was unarmed when he was shot by the police and added, “If this individual was reaching for a semi-automatic handgun, I would suggest … that’s probably why deadly force was employed.”

Around 100 people gathered at the scene of the incident demanding justice in the hours after the shooting, AFP reported. This comes as the US President Donald Trump was headed for Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday where police shot African-American Jacob Blake seven times on August 23, leaving him paralysed from the waist down.

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Blake’s shooting sparked fresh outrage in the US against racism and police brutality, which started after the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. Floyd, an African-American man, died on May 25 after a police officer knelt on his neck. His killing led to anti-racism protests in the US and other countries, the most widespread civil unrest in the US since the 1960s.