'Mentally ill' black man shot dead by US police
September 29, 2016
The mayor of a San Diego suburb admitted on Wednesday that two officers who responded to the incident had received only basic training in dealing with people with mental health problems.
Mayor Bill Wells said the police department preferred to dispatch officers who have had specialized mental health training, but none were available.
It took police an hour to respond to Tuesday's incident, local media reported, which saw victim Alfred Olangon shot dead a minute after officers arrived on the scene.
Man refused to comply
Police said they were called to a man behaving erratically in traffic, around 16 kilometers (10 miles) east of downtown San Diego. They shot him after he appeared to pull something from his pocket and point it at officers.
A witness filmed the incident. Police later released a still image from the footage showing two police officers pointing weapons at a man in a shooting position.
One policeman opened fire with his service pistol and his partner simultaneously fired a Taser stun gun when the man pulled an object from his pocket and took aim at them in a "shooting stance," police said.
No weapon was recovered from the man. The object he was said to be carrying was not specified.
Protesters chant "murder"
On Wednesday, several dozen people protested Olango's killing, chanting the phrase "black lives matter." Many of them demanded a federal investigation into his killing.
The fatal shooting follows police killings of black men in Tulsa and Charlotte, which sparked widespread protests.
Olango fled Uganda with his family for the US in 1991. He lost permanent residency in 2001 after a conviction for cocaine dealing. A deportation order for him was still outstanding.
Olango was at least the 716th person shot and killed by police in the US in 2016, according to the Washington Post.
mm/jm (AP, dpa, Reuters)