Some 300 demonstrators gathered outside the El Cajon Police Department in suburban San Diego on Wednesday, to protest the police shooting death of an unarmed and mentally ill black man, named locally as Ugandan-born Alfred Olango.
The crowd yelled “murder” and chanted “Black Lives Matter” as they expressed anger at the killing of Mr Olango, less than a fortnight after protests over two dubious police shootings of black men rocked the cities of Tulsa, Oklahoma and Charlotte, North Carolina.
El Cajon police said the victim, who was in his 30s, was shot dead on Tuesday after officers responded to multiple calls to deal with a mentally ill individual walking in traffic in the Southern California suburb. According to Reuters, one of the officers had been trained as a member of the San Diego County “Psychiatric Emergency Response Team” or PERT.
The victim reportedly aimed an unspecified object at the officers. One officer fired his taser, while the other fired his sidearm. No weapon was recovered from the scene, police said. In a video later posted to YouTube, a woman identifying herself as Mr Olango’s sister shouted at the officers, “Oh my God, you killed my brother!”
El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis said on Wednesday that it was “a time for calm”, adding: “I implore the community to be patient with us, work with us, look at the facts at hand before making any judgment.”
Reverend Shane Harris, president of the local chapter of the National Action Network, was among the protesters demanding police release video of the shooting and calling for a federal investigation of the incident. “We are not going to stop until we get justice,” he said.
