Fatal shooting of Black man by deputies sparks protests

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed Dijon Kizzee after they stopped the Black man on his bicycle for a traffic violation and he ran from them, punched one and then dropped a bundle that included a gun, authorities and relatives said.

The shooting death Monday afternoon comes on the heels of a police shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that left Jacob Blake, who is also Black, paralyzed and spurred days of protests, reinvigorating the national debate on racial injustice and policing.

Kizzee’s family and friends created a small memorial to the 29-year-old at the shooting scene in the South Los Angeles area on Tuesday, leaving flowers, balloons and candles just feet away from first responders’ discarded blue medical gloves and rolled bandages. More than 100 protesters had marched in the area the night before, some chanting “Say his name” and “No justice, no peace,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

The sheriff’s department has not released Kizzee’s name, but two relatives confirmed his identity.

In interviews Tuesday with The Associated Press, relatives remembered Kizzee as an energetic young man with many friends and expressed anger at the shooting.

“You guys take care of dogs, you don’t take care of us,” Kizzee’s aunt Fletcher Fair said, addressing the sheriff’s department. “He was a sweet and loving young man. He had his whole life ahead of him and it was cut short by rogue sheriffs.”

Kizzee’s uncle Anthony Johnson, 33, recalled that the two grew up together and were as close as brothers. Johnson said he had often warned his nephew that, as a Black man, he had to be especially careful.

“‘You have a target on your back, just by being you,’” Johnson remembered saying as recently as a few weeks ago. “He was like, ‘yeah, all right, uncle,’ like he always says.”