District Attorney Clears Officers Involved in Shooting of Black Homeless Man

LA officers cleared in fatal shooting of black homeless man Charly Keunang.

Charly Keunang police shooting
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Still from the video of the fatal polcie shooting of Charly Keunang, a homeless man in LA in March 2015.

Charly Keunang police shooting

The district attorney’s office has cleared Los Angeles police officers in the March 2015 fatal shooting of Charly Keunang, a homeless man known as “Africa.” The shooting, which happened in the Skid Row area of LA, was caught on video by an onlooker and became a part of the ongoing national conversation around police brutality.

The Los Angeles Timesreported Thursday that the district attorney found Sgt. Chand Syed and Officers Francisco Martinez and Daniel Torres were justified in Keunang’s shooting. The Times obtained the D.A.’s 22-page memo explaining the decision. Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Police Commission said the shooting was in “policy.”

Citing body camera footage from the sergeant, prosecutors said Keunang, while struggling with police, put his fingers around rookie officer Joshua Volasgis’ gun and was “rapidly gaining control” of it. “Keunang posed a high likelihood of killing officers and civilians at the very instant that he was shot,” prosecutors wrote.

The Los Angeles Police Commission and the LAPD toldThe Huffington Post there weren’t plans to release the body cam footage recorded by two officers during the shooting. In the video recorded by a civilian, police are seen tasing Keunang before shots—six according to an autopsy—ring out.

However, the Los Angeles Times saw the body cam footage and wrote that despite Volasgis saying "He's got my gun" the footage showed Volasgis’ gun was still in its holster after Keunang was shot. The Los Angeles Police Commission previously said Volasgis was “out of policy” because he couldn’t keep control of his baton, taken by a woman, and his gun, since Volasgis alleged Keunang took the gun.

Keunang, a 43-year-old Cameroonian, had been in a mental facility for a decade.

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