The Los Angeles Police Department is looking into Saturday’s fatal police shooting that left a black man dead.
The incident first started when LAPD officers spotted two individuals driving a vehicle with paper license plates believed to be stolen, according to authorities. The officers attempted to perform a traffic stop, but the vehicle instead led them on a chase.
The vehicle later pulled over and the two male passengers fled on foot, at which point the officers split up.
One of the officers, whose name has not been released, fatally shot one of the men less than two blocks away from the vehicle. The man was pronounced dead when paramedics arrived, and a handgun was recovered at the scene.
The man’s mother has now identified him as Carnell Snell Jr., 18. Witnesses told KTLA that Snell was running away with his hands in the air when he was shot four or five times, causing some to say the shooting was not necessary.
“This is an 18-year-old boy, this is somebody’s son, this is somebody’s friend, this is somebody’s brother and you killed him. I don’t care what your story is,” Melina Abdullah, a Black Lives Matter activist, told KTLA. “I believe the community; I don’t believe the lying police.”
Angry crowds gathered in South L.A. in protest soon after the shooting. Several officers changed into riot gear, although later removed the gear after tensions died down.
Snell is not the only young man of color shot and killed by the LAPD in the past few months. Joshua Joel Quintero, 23, was fatally shot on Sept. 1 by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy when he fled from the scene of a murder and reached for his revolver. Donta Gurrell Taylor, 31, was also fatally shot on Aug. 25 while being chased by a sheriff’s deputy, though it’s unclear if he was armed. Police shot Jesse James Romero, 14, who may have threatened the officers with a loaded handgun on Aug. 9 according to witnesses.
“They’re killing us, they’re taking us out,” Angie Erwing, a protestor, told KTLA. “Come on, it’s too many stories over and over again. They’re killing us. Why?”
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