A US policeman shot and killed a wheelchair-bound shoplifter, hitting him nine times in the back and side as he rolled away from the officer, a media report said on Wednesday.
The shooting is the latest in a country where law enforcement readily resorts to deadly force when confronting criminal suspects.
Police in Tucson, Arizona, said that off-duty officer Ryan Remington was working as a security guard in a retail area when 61-year-old Richard Lee Richards was believed to have stolen a toolbox from a Walmart.
Footage released by the department shows Remington a couple of meters behind Richards, asking him to stop.
When Richards continues to move his motorized wheelchair away, Remington opens fire with nine bullets, hitting the suspected shoplifter in the back and the side.
Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus said that Remington had been called to help by a Walmart employee.
“According to the employee, he caught up with Mr Richards outside as he fled the store and asked to see a receipt for the toolbox,” CNN quoted Magnus as saying.
“Instead of providing the receipt, Mr Richards brandished a knife and said: ‘Here’s your receipt,’” he added.
Magnus told a news conference that he was “deeply disturbed” by his officer’s actions.
“His use of deadly force in this incident is a clear violation of department policy and directly contradicts multiple aspects of our use of force and training,” Magnus said. “As a result, the department moved earlier today to terminate Officer Remington.”
CNN quoted an attorney for Remington as saying that the video did not tell the whole story of Monday’s shooting.
Michael Storie said Remington “attempted to de-escalate the situation,” but Richards’ actions left him “no choice but to use deadly force.”
There is no official national record of fatal shootings by US police officers, and reporting of incidents by police departments is voluntary.
A tally published on Wednesday by the Washington Post showed that more than 900 people have been shot and killed by police in the US in the past year.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the