A video has emerged purporting to show the moment two Los Angeles police officers shot and killed a suspect as he tried to crawl away.
Police officials have confirmed the incident took place shortly before midday on Saturday in the Lynwood suburb of the Californian city.
A brief statement from Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said the man, who has been named in local media reports as 28-year-old father-of-three Nicholas Robertson, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police spokesman Lieutenant Eddie Hernandez told KTLA-5 deputies responded to a number of calls reporting a person, described as a black man wearing a checkered shirt, carrying a gun.
Lt Hernandez said Robertson actively fired his gun at some point during the incident, though it was not known what he shot at, before police arriving at the scene gave him “several commands” to drop the gun.
“We have witnesses that say that the suspect turned, pointed the gun at the deputies, and a deputy-involved shooting occurred,” he said, adding that a loaded handgun was retrieved at the scene and no officers were injured in the incident.
Lt Hernandez told KABC-TV that his department was aware of the 29-second video purporting to show the shooting, which was sent to TV stations.
He described the video as “just one piece of evidence… that’ll be analyzed against the physical evidence, the witness statements and the deputies’ statements”.
But there were demonstrations at the scene just hours after the shooting, and Robertson’s mother-in-law appeared among the crowd to denounce the man’s death as “injustice”.
