WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Two protesters were arrested and are in the custody of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for causing unrest outside of the LAPD headquarters over the fatal shooting of an unarmed homeless man on Sunday, LAPD officer Jack Richter told Sputnik.
“Two protesters were arrested at 11:30 am [Pacific Time] for ‘four sixteen’ which is… disturbing the peace and refusing to leave a public space,” Officer Richter said on Tuesday.
Richter explained that only about 10 other protesters remained outside of the LAPD headquarters, compared to the 150 who were gathered outside of the police department earlier in the day.
The protest was organized by homeless advocacy group Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN) and Skid Row community residents following the release of an online video showing a homeless man being shot dead by the LAPD in the Skid Row area of downtown Los Angeles.
According to the LAPD, the man “forcibly grabbed” one of the several police officer’s holstered guns, which resulted in the officer shooting the man.
Earlier on Tuesday the Los Angeles Times identified the homeless man who was killed as 39-year-old Charley Saturmin Robinet, a French national linked with numerous bank robberies. However, LAPD officer Richter would not confirm whether these reports were true.
The fatal Los Angeles shooting is the latest in a series involving excessive use of force by US police that have resulted in fatal casualties.
Since the summer of 2014, the United States has experienced a wave of protests calling for police accountability, after US police killed two African American men, Eric Garner and Michael Brown, in New York and Ferguson.
