Protests as US cops shoot dead unarmed black man

MORE PROTESTS were planned on Wednesday a day after a police officer in southern California shot and killed an unarmed black man, less than two weeks after similar incidents in two other US cities.

In the latest shooting, two officers responded to calls about an African-american man in his 30s walking in traffic and “not acting like himself,” according to police in El Cajon, a city some 24 km from San Diego.

Days earlier, in Charlotte, North Carolina and in Tulsa, Oklahoma, police and shot and killed black men, igniting demonstrations against racial bias in US policing. In Charlotte, rioting prompted the authorities to impose a state of emergency and curfew.

The El Cajon officers found the man behind a restaurant at about 2 pm and ordered him to remove his hand from his pocket. After he refused, one officer drew a firearm and the other readied a Taser device, police said.

The man paced back and forth as the officers tried to talk to him with their weapons pointed at him, police said. He then pulled an object from his front pants pocket, placed both hands together and extended them toward an officer in “what appeared to be a shooting stance,” police said.

The officers simultaneously shot and used the Taser on the man, who died after being taken to the hospital, police said. Officials have not identified him.

No weapon was found at the scene, El Cajon police chief Jeff Davis said. He did not say what the man was pointing.

Demonstrators planned to assemble outside the police department on Wednesday to “demand an end to the oppression of black and brown people,” said United Against Police Terror, an activist group organising the event.

Some 30 protesters gathered at the scene after the shooting, according to local media. They marched to the police department, by which time the crowd had swollen to about 100 people, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In video that emerged on social media purportedly from the moments after the shooting, a woman who says she is the victim’s sister is heard saying she phoned police. “Oh my God. You killed my brother. I just called for help and ... you killed him,” the unidentified woman said, sobbing.

A witness voluntarily provided investigators with cellphone video of the incident, police said. REUTERS