https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy7VZ6IiInI

“Deputies with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Compton division reported seeing security officers involved in a physical altercation with a suspect outside a Target store in the 1600 block of South Alameda Street in Compton,” privateofficerbreakingnews.blogspot.com reports. “Officials said the suspect pulled out a large pair of scissors while they were trying to apprehend him. They also said the man ran to a vehicle and a car chase ensued. The suspect reportedly came to a stop in the 1800 block of East Ocean Blvd, Long Beach, where he refused to comply with deputies’ commands to exit the car. Approximately 15 minutes later . . .

the suspect exited the vehicle with a large wooden stick in hand. They said the suspect continued to refuse to obey orders.

In an attempt to detain the suspect, deputies said they shot the man with a bean bag. The stun bag had no effect on the suspect, and he again ran. The suspect then took on Long Beach Police Department officers, who were assisting.

During this time, officers then shot the man as he resisted officers.

Or not.

[h/t DrVino]

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114 COMMENTS

  1. Wow…and they almost shot their own dog too.

    Unless I’m missing something, this looks like an incredibly bad shoot. The blatant lies given by the department and responding officers are inexcusable. Charges need to be filed.

    • As a LEO, the actions of the LASD are sickening. There is no way to justify this shoot. It seems that lying on reports is the norm in LA and on this anniversary of the Rodney King riots, it would seem that nothing has been learning in two decades. Cameras are everywhere. Where is the DOJ on this? This is now two bad fatal shootings in a month, all by the LASD. Enough is enough. A lot of cops need to be fired. A bunch need to face homicide and civil rights charges. It’s horrible when good people who wear the badge get associated with felonious ass clowns like this.

    • That video isn’t “controversial”…… looks like standard operating procedure of most LA gangs.

    • I have no idea what you were watching… that was a textbook procedural 21 gun warning shot into the suspect…
      no procedures were violated.

      see how that works? we just make it procedure!

    • Thank God it wasn’t the NYPD. They would have fired twice as many rounds, hit 9 people on the beach and probably sunk that boat in the process of giving the suspect a grazing fleshwound.

    • Looks like he was shot in the back while running away. If a civilian does that to a burglar, the civilian is charged with (at least) 2nd degree murder.

      Of course, this guy committed “contempt of cop”, and that is a capital crime wherein the perp may be judged, convicted, and executed by the offended officers, right? Oh, I forgot -[sarc/off]

  2. Somebody got gun happy and shot him in cold blood. They should have held fire and just let the dog chew on him. IMHO

      • Betcha that criminal wasn’t even licensed to open carry those deadly things….. Thank goodness we have a state working so hard to protect us against scary scissor wielding thugs like him…

    • Yeah I am wondering the same thing. it appears that the long Beach cops were at the bottom of the steps off t the guy who was shot left. They shot him as he was coming down the stairs.

    • I was thinking the same thing. They shot him in the back as he was running away. I don’t know how in any way this could be claimed as a good shoot.

      • They would have claimed that he flinched and turned his back when they started firing, so they started shooting when he was facing them, then he turned his back before the rounds impacted. People actually make this claim

  5. Wow, just wow. So he is running away from the police with a police dog on his tail and they shoot him up? There is no reason what-so-ever for this incident and these cops need to be charged to the full extent of the law. Are the involved officers on leave from the department?

    • Yep, Daniel, spot on. I count ten. Counted ’em twice. While he wielded a “large wooden stick” (not shown) and ran from them.

      Good work! He might have swum to Catalina, were it not for sterling police work!

  7. WOW this looks like such a horrible shoot! Why did they leave him to bleed out for so long? If a ccw holder shot someone like that, he would be rightfully charged for cold blooded murder.

    That dog is lucky to be alive.

    • A state knowingly employing and supporting incompetent thugs like these, have no rightful right to charge anyone with anything. Instead, they really ought to simply abdicate and go die somewhere, leaving the rest of us in peace.

      But aside from that, what this clown did, certainly looked like a textbook demonstration of how to murder someone in cold blood. If you suck at shooting, but is nonetheless is licensed to randomly kill and get away with it.

  8. Yeah, what took them so long to get to him after he went down? Maybe one of the LEOs hereabouts can explain?

    • 1 minute and 20ish seconds from when he got shot and put his hands up and complied? Is that an unreasonable amount of time to ensure that he is no longer a threat and can be safely taken into custody and looked at by EMT/Fire personnel?

      • I dunno, it only took him a few seconds to get from where the cops were to where he went down. How were they ascertaining his non-threatening status, with binoculars? Hoping for a reasonable LEO to jump in here.

        • Given the angle which they appeared from, I’d be guessing they went around the building(s) to get to him, instead of going down the stairs he was fleeing down, since the stairs are completely exposed and are essentially a death trap (as the suspect found out). Moreover, given that they were in formation, I’m not particularly surprised it took them that long to find another way down. Now about shooting him in the first place, I’d guess that someone got a little trigger happy and once the first bullet flew, everyone else started shooting.

        • OK, thanks–but the guys who came around the building were LBPD in dark uniforms, no? The LACSD, in the khaki, wouldn’t they be following at a distance? I mean, someone would want to keep him in sight, right? Just seems like he was laying there a long time, and the cops weren’t that far away–he didn’t run too far before going down.

  9. And…cue the jackoffs who know all the facts of this case without actually having been on scene and who are now going to judge this particular use of force based solely off a grainy video.

    • You mean the video that shows a man with no weapons being chased by a police dog who is then shot in the back? Those the facts we don’t see?

    • Not the sharpest vid I’ve seen, but hardly “grainy”. And clearly, the guy was running, not “resisting” as per the report.

        • For reference in the discussion since it will come up, here’s what SC Cops are taught in cop school:

          In Tennessee vs Garner, SCOTUS gave us the “fleeing felon rule.” Deadly force is generally NOT permitted to prevent escape. It is permitted only in certain, limited circumstances regarding the risk to the public if the felon escapes.

          If the dude was unarmed AND shot in the back (I have not watched the video), they may well be in serious trouble. If they escape the criminal charges somehow, the civil will be very hard to beat.

        • In CA resisting arrest is listed as a misdemeanor punishable by fine and up to one year in jail.

          In case it comes up.

        • @ Mark: No, it isn’t. Running away is evading arrest or fleeing an officer. Resisting arrest is using force against the officer. That’s how it is in Texas, gonna be similar elsewhere I expect. Two separate offenses. See For Realz post.

        • Sorry, editing hiccup. Wanted to add, in Texas evading is one grade lower than resisting

    • Ah! reaching for his waistband… I assume with the obstructed view, the dog must have radioed that into his partner.

      • To be fair, what they’re saying is that the two groups of cops had an obstructed view of each other. So apparently when group 1 shot the beanbag at the guy, group 2 thought it was the guy shooting group 1?

        Or some such.

  11. Time to charge the officer(s) involved with lying, falsifying documents, and murder.
    One or more of these officers belong in jail for murder.

    • While the rest of the racket that get to go on as usual until they too are caught on video committing a most obviously depraved offense, of course…… Every time the coverups don’t work, it’s always just that one guy who is baaad…. Throw him under the bus and go back to do what they always do.

      Just out of curiosity, what would it take to falsify the never questioned hypothesis that a tight knit, professional police force, allowed to use force above and beyond that which is acceptable for a civilian, is somehow a good idea, in a society of men supposedly free, civilized and equal under the law?

  12. We’re not surprised are we?

    Yet another…ahem…’questionable’ shoot by law enforcement.

    Anyone care to wager on whether any of the deputies get fired? Or even reprimanded?

  13. Tennessee vs. Garner.

    I can tell that the people commenting have no legal training regarding the use of deadly force. The police can use deadly force on a fleeing suspect if he poses a risk to the public. This guy fulfilled that by a) using scissors against a security guard performing a lawful job, and b) holding a wooden weapon when he encountered the police (and before any arm chair quarterbacks talk about a stick not being lethal, batons are considered lethal force when used against upper body or head).

    The suspect demonstrated that he was willing to kill or seriously injure by his choice of weapons. Most of the posers here will cry “bad shoot ” or “excessive force”, but then they don’t arrest felons for a living.

    Now cue the accusations of being a statist, or whatever other epithets are in style.

    • “The police can use deadly force on a fleeing suspect if he poses a risk to the public. ”
      Can we do that too?

      • Tennessee v Garner does not apply to “fleeing suspects” but “fleeing felons.” That matters. As in…a whole lot. The situation of a cop witnessing a felony is far different than a cop suspecting someone of some crime.

        And, the SCOTUS ruling, at least so far as I was taught in “Legals” classes, gives deadly force as a rare exception for special cases, not just cuz.

    • “The Tennessee statute is unconstitutional insofar as it authorizes the use of deadly force against, as in this case, an apparently unarmed, nondangerous fleeing suspect; such force may not be used unless necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or other” – Tenn v Garner

      So this case found that Tenn was not justified in shooting an unarmed, fleeing suspect in the back. That’s your best argument? He was being chased by a police dog, was unarmed, and there were a bunch of cops in the area. Was he really going to escape?

      White goes on further to say, “While burglary is a serious crime, the officer in this case could not reasonably have believed that the suspect — young, slight, and unarmed — posed any threat.” (Tenn v Garner, again)

      He resisted arrest twice, but I’m not sure that rises to the level of public threat required by this case. Then again, I’m not a constitutional law scholar.

    • I know not whether you are a statist or not. A knee-jerk cop-excuser? Yeah, that’s what I know.

    • Since you have the legal training, I have a question: is there any element of ” no other way to stop the fleeing felon” before you are clear to shoot? Like maybe chasing him down? Serious question, hoping for a serious answer.

      • Or, perhaps; lay off the donuts and spend a few hours on a treadmill, so you have some other means of apprehending a fleeing turtle than shooting it…….

    • “The police can use deadly force on a fleeing suspect if he poses a risk to the public.”

      A circle K shoplifter lifting a bag of chips would fall under that definition.. in fact anybody on two feet running also qualifies for the double tap to the back.. they pose a risk because cops cant read minds.. Further… a bad case of arthritis preventing a guy from putting his hands behind his back also qualifies for the same mag-dump to the back…because cops arent in the business of giving the benefit of the doubt.. they are in the business of cuffing and stuffing and if that cant happen its shoot and zip the body bag shut.

      And arresting felons.. really?.. Last time I checked, the arrest ratio of arrests for not paying fines, or driving on a suspended out numbered the felons…. But please.. dont let a good story get in the way of the truth.

      • “A circle K shoplifter lifting a bag of chips would fall under that definition.. “

        Not really. A shoplifter is not a felon, for starters. And, I don’t think Ricky quite stated it properly.

        The risk to the public has to be pretty clear and egregious from what I understand from the way *I* was taught this stuff.

        A bank robber that just shot several people and is trying to escape is the kind of thing that MIGHT trigger justified use of deadly force in a fleeing felon case.

        I could be wrong, and sure would like to hear from the lawyers with experience in such cases, but I don’t think there have been a lot of actual cases AFTER Tennessee Vs Garner where fleeing felons were killed by cops and it be ruled “justified.”

        My (limited) understanding of the SCOTUS ruling was that justified deadly force for fleeing felons was to be a very, very rarely applied EXCEPTION, not SOP.

        • I agree; shooting someone who is suspected of just blowing up a Marathon or shooting a bunch of cops is one thing but its another to just turn the streets into a free fire zone where a wrong look or a decision to resist without violence is met with deadly force. The officer in this case needs to be in jail for a long long time.

        • Poor guy. If he had been carrying a sack of donuts instead of scissors they would not have shot him and ran him down instead.

    • You’d have an interesting point if the police report said “he was a fleeing felon, and fearing for public safety we shot him.”

      However, since that is _not_ what the police report says…..

  14. They shot him because he was outrunning the dog and the fat cops too. It’s always grand to see video emerge a little while after the official reports are filed.

  15. That doesn’t look good. I don’t see how they would honestly justify this shoot.

    I’d add this also as evidence against those who glibly say that handguns suck at killing / stopping people, because this poor man went down pretty fast.

    • We have lots of junkies who flee the cops when pulled over. First there is the car chase, then the suspect exits his vehicle and flees on foot. The cops call in the dogs, and the dogs take them down. Seems like it happens at least once or more per week. And none of them get shot. Bit, sure, but not shot. The only shootings in my town involved suspects with firearms shooting at cops, or attempting to take a firearm from a cop.

      • What you just described sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

        What I saw in the vdja didn’t look reasonable to my eyes.

        I don’t have the benefit of legal training on use of force from a law enforcement perspective, so I’ll just say that to me this looks like a case of just because something is legal to do doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

  17. These cops are idiots.

    They should have ran after him, then fell down the stairs. Back injury, chest pain from having to run their fat donut eating asses 20 feet, and PTSD because they were confronted with a armed perp. Would have set them up real nice for their union disability and pension.

    The dead guys lives, the fat union cops get to live free and easy on the tax payer dime…everyone wins!

  18. That was Iraqi Pilice Force use of force continuum right there. “Stop!…bangbangbangbang”

  19. STOP RESISTING CITIZEN!

    Well, I dunno, maybe this was legal and such according to the law of the land at present, still it looks pretty damn shitty.

    Could he have been tased, could they have let the dog chew his ass, could they have settled for beating the shit out of him with their batons?

    Is it possible that it was something as simple as poor trigger discipline and then when one shot errantly went off, everyone got down to it.

    I’d like to hope that they weren’t of the “Wish a M-Fer would…” mindset.

    I mean, it’s not like this happened in Albuquerque.

    Questions. I has em.

  20. Just remember, folks, cops are held to a lower standard than us. Look at all the bad shoots with no prosecutions. For instance, the L.A. cops that shot up the mother/daughter newspaper delivery team. A violation of police department policy, yet the prosecutor won’t file charges.

    • Well, the LAPD DID buy them a new truck. After they threatened to sue the p!ss out of the county. What more do you want?

      /sarc

      • Actually they didnt buy them a new truck, the got sued and the women won over a million in judgement. The city would buy the truck but they wouldnt pay the taxes on it, they expected the victims to foot that bill.

  21. This is just proof of what I’ve said: fear the police, they WILL kill you!

    My guess is they were grouchy, didn’t get their donut fix or free coffee or not enough OT to pad their high year pension calculations.

  22. Seems to me that Everytown for Gun Removal should be picketing Long Beach instead of the NRA convention. But wait – Bloomberg once commanded the world’s seventh largest “military” (NYPD), so probably supports this kind of behavior.

  23. WTH??? Shot him in the back running away? I don’t see anything in this video that justified a shooting…unfortunately even scumbags have rights. Perhaps it was just Karma catching up to him, via Police stupidity/brutality.

  24. even if you assume the shooting is justified at the start, once that first shot hit him and he goes down, isnt that last barage overkill? i mean he was going down and they basically unloaded on the guy while hes on the ground.

  25. Even if they can call it a good shoot per the law the paperwork is a lie and cops who lie on official paperwork need to go. Why are cops held to such low standards? Why are they allowed to make decisions that affect life, and face no consequences when they are willfully wrong? There’s lots of good people in the world that are fully capable of making good calls in these kind of situations. We don’t need to settle for bad cops. Fire these guys and get some good replacements. I’d rather pay for the fired cops welfare checks than have him back out on the street making crap decisions again.

  26. Wow…just…wow….that people is the cold blooded murder of a civilian on American soil. A murder that would lead to you or I spending the rest of our lives in jail at best, or a needle in our arms at worst. Yet I am sure the LEO who shot this poor guy will face little more than a slap on the wrists , if even that.

    If you don’t believe in the thin blue line already, and you didn’t believe in it after 3 innocent people were shot by various California LE agencies during the Dorner incident I sure as hell hope you do now.

  27. To be fair at about 1:52 when he gets out of the car he DOES appear to have something in his hand, which he ‘twirls’. Not sure what it is, at first I thought a slim jim. He doesn’t have it anymore when he re-appears on the stairs so he must have ditched it when he was hidden by the foliage.

    As far as Tennessee vs. Garner goes, I’m no attorney (nor do I blah, blah), but it is my understanding that the only time a police officer is justified in using deadly force against a fleeing, unarmed suspect is if the danger to the public is imminent. So mass-murderer, guy who hacked multiple people with a sword or active shooter that dropped his weapons? Yes, he can be shot. Person involved in a ‘physical altercation’ with an unarmed security guard who ‘pulled large scissors’ on the police when trying to apprehend him? Not-so-much.

  28. Give me a break…What happened to innocent until proven guilty.. It seems your readers are the exact opposite when it comes to the Police… When you have a loved one on the beach in front of a guy that sounds like he is shooting it out with Sheriffs lets see how many shots your going to use to stop him from reaching your family. And think about how many officers shot. Ten from one person is a lot but two from five is not…I don’t know how many officers shot because “OMG” I wasn’t there. Being a Monday Night Quarterback is easy when it’s done from the safety of an armchair several hours later. Knowing you wont publish this.

    AUSSYTIME

    • Aussy you must be new here-
      very few comments deleted, most moderated of the few that deserve it, per guidelines gone over more than a few times,
      and no comments withheld, to my knowledge.

      And I’d say about 2/3 here tend to be pretty critical of the cops, so if I am understanding your comment about innocent until proven guilty, you are missing that.

      Stick around tho, welcome to our allies from down-under.
      Hows the gun-grabber laws working out for you?

      PS: I’m not commenting on this shoot until more facts come in. It doesnt look good, but a long iphone-type vid shot from one angle with much of the view blocked is not enough to pass judgement.

  30. When something is illegal for a random citizen but is allowable by the government (ie: shooting a fleeing suspect in the back) is acceptable, then we are truly lost.

  31. Unless there were some cops out of view at the bottom of those stairs and he was running toward them, this looks pretty bad. I can’t tell if he was shot in the back from up the stairs or in the front from the left side of the video frame (where the cops came in from after he stopped moving).

    • I have to agree, it sure looks bad… especially the fact that, based on the video, most of the shots happen as he’s rolling down the steps. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect anyone to let someone stab them with scissors, or even hit them with (a reasonable large- not a ruler) stick, but the word ‘imminent’ means something.

      I have to wonder if there was anyone around the corner where the camera couldn’t see that would be threatened by him or if someone needs a refresher on TN v. Garner.

  32. Where are the good reverands (Jesse and Al) going to hold their march against police brutality over this?

    Me thinks there’s some people who are going to lose their job over this shoot.

  34. THE TRUTH? – Long Beach Police murdered this unarmed man. Those of us that lived in the two buildings that faced the cul de sac where this played out … could clearly see there was no threat. At least a dozen mobile phones and a GoPro where filming this. LBPD and LACSD had over 30 minutes to set themselves up in prime positions, while the individual remained in his vehicle. Civilians were never in harms way. Many officers appeared relax and moved about without seeking additional cover. When he exist the vehicle he did have a wooden stick, which he never held in a aggressive position. Quickly the police released the dog on him, which caused him to further panic, drop the stick and attempt to run down the stairs. Police had this person boxed in. Unarmed they killed him in cold blood. Every police officer that unloaded lethal bullets and there superiors should be jailed.

  39. If these cops felt justified at the time of the murder (as some are arguing in comments), why did they need to apparently falsify the report? If they falsified it then they obviously didn’t believe that the true facts supported this murder. Their own lies betray that even they didn’t believe that they were justified!

  40. Non of those cops should be in service today they shot a man in the back while run away from them.

  41. They had to shoot him before he made it to the beach because we know those cops are too out of shape to run in sand. 😛

    I was surprised by the entire video: there is no hot pursuit, the cops don’t have the red mist, the people with the video camera think those are rubber bullets or bean bags, etc.

  42. The cops were off left side of stairs hiding behind palm trees approx 10-12feet away. They are inhuman bastards. I was there i saw this shit go down. That man was murdered. As far as im concerned all cops can die a slow painful death like the man i saw them kill today.that shit aint right

  43. In the 2nd video posted above it looks like at least one cop had an AR-15. Are we sure this was a pistol shot and not a rifle shot?

    Also, to those saying deadly force was authorized because the suspect was seen trying to attack the guards “with a large set of scissors”, considering how much of the police report is clearly fabricated based on the above vid, how do we not know that the scissors were fabricated as well? When you lie and obfuscate in any part of a police report, it destroys your entire narrative of events. How can we believe the police’s story about the lead up to the shooting when there are so many clear lies in the story about the shooting itself?

  44. At any time this bozo could have complied. Got out of his truck and laid down. While I don’t agree with the explanation of the shoot, they were culling the herd.

  45. The part I don’t understand is that about 3 steps from the bottom of the staircase he is dropped with a shot;
    – then as soon as he falls to the ground he’s hit with about a 10 round barrage –
    Why would you unload on him as soon as he falls to the ground from being shot? I do not understand that at all.

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