The police officer who shot and killed a knife-wielding Guatemalan man whose death has sparked three days of violent protests in Los Angeles had been involved in two previous shootings while on duty, according to a media report.
The story on the Los Angeles Times Web site came as hundreds of people returned to the streets for a third night of protests over the fatal shooting of Manuel Jamines, 37,
Earlier on Wednesday evening, Chief Charlie Beck faced an angry crowd at a community meeting intended to quell the violence.
Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Chief Charlie Beck voiced support for Hernandez in an interview with the Times. Citing privacy laws, Beck would not discuss the past shootings or any details of Hernandez’s personnel file.
At the community meeting, a crowd of more than 300 packed a school in the Westlake neighborhood where Jamines was killed on Sunday after he allegedly lunged toward the officer with a switchblade.
The crowd jeered Beck when he defended officers by reading a witness’s account of how Jamines threatened her.
Beck said the witness, a neighborhood resident who was not named, told three bicycle officers that a man with blood on his hands tried to stab her and pregnant woman next to her.
“She referred to the officers as her angels who had descended from heaven to save her life and that of the pregnant lady,” Beck said.
Sunday’s killing turned into a rallying point as community members, aided by outsiders, took to the streets three consecutive nights and used the death to highlight past injustices and vent ongoing frustrations.
Police have defended the killing and said they’ve been taken aback by the high emotions following what looked like a clear-cut case of justifiable use of force. Each year, the LAPD is involved in up to about 40 shootings; those that typically cause controversy involve unarmed or surrendered suspects.
Residents outraged over the killing have said the top brass should have handled the situation differently and say department officials’ surprise shows the agency is out of touch with the people.
Authorities have said the officers told Jamines in Spanish and English to put down the weapon. Instead, he raised the knife above his head and lunged at officer Frank said Capt. Kris Pitcher, who heads the LAPD’s Force Investigation Division.
Hernandez shot Jamines twice in the head. He died at the scene.
Juan Barillas, a member of the Union de Guatemaltecos Emigrantes, told the crowd at Wednesday’s meeting that Jamines spoke neither English nor Spanish. Instead, he spoke Quiche, a Mayan dialect, Barillas said.
“They could have used pepper spray or a Taser gun,” said Salvador Sanabria, executive director of the nonprofit community group El Rescate.
Pitcher said Jamines was an illegal immigrant from Guatemala. The day laborer was carrying a switchblade knife with a serrated, 7.6cm blade. The police captain pledged an open and transparent investigation into the shooting.
The other officers involved were Steven Rodriguez and Paris Pineda, both five-year veterans of the department. All the officers were Latino and speak Spanish.
Police said the knife was covered in blood, and DNA tests were being carried out to determine whose it was. Officers received unconfirmed reports Jamines may have attacked someone before police arrived, Pitcher said.
The officers involved were placed on administrative leave, a standard move after shootings.
Protesters who gathered outside the local police station on Tuesday night pelted officers with eggs, rocks and bottles and set a trash bin on fire. Others dropped household items from apartment buildings. Officers fired at least two rounds of foam projectiles at demonstrators and arrested 22 people, mainly for failure to disperse and unlawful assembly.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS