Police shoot, kill knife-wielding man in Lancaster, set off protests

Lancaster (US), Sept. 15: A police officer fatally shot a man with a knife after his sister said she called police to get him involuntarily committed, leading to street protests and vandalism in what the mayor of the small Pennsylvania city of Lancaster called a “heartbreaking day”. Police posted the officer’s body camera video on social media, showing the man chasing the officer down a sidewalk with a knife before he was fatally shot.

Police eventually used tear gas early Monday to disperse hundreds of protesters who took to the streets of the diverse city of 59,000 people in the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country following the shooting death of Ricardo Munoz on Sunday afternoon. Munoz, 27, was mentally ill — diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia — and hadn’t been taking his medications, his sister said.

Rulennis Munoz, 33, said she had called a crisis intervention organisation and a police non-emergency number to get her brother involuntarily committed. “He had an episode. He was just incoherent and acting out,” she said. “I called to find out what the procedure was to get him some help.”

Authorities did not

immediately explain why an officer was dispatched, although Munoz was facing four counts of aggravated assault after he was accused last year of stabbing four people, including a 16-year-old boy in the face, following a fight. The body camera video posted by police late Sunday showed the officer fire several shots while running away from Munoz, who then falls to the ground.

Protesters gathered outside the police station and, in video posted to social media, they chanted, “Hands up, don't shoot”, “No justice, no peace” and “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!”