Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has jumped to defend as “heroes” officers who shot an immigrant worker. Meanwhile, anger in the LA neighborhood of Westlake continues to grow, erupting at a mass meeting on Wednesday.
Manuel Jamines, a 37 year-old Guatemalan day laborer, was shot and killed on a crowded street Sunday, September 5. Many eyewitnesses say that he was unarmed, though police officers claim he possessed a knife at the time.
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At the Wednesday meeting residents denounced the police. Several residents reported other incidents of police abuse that were never properly investigated. The crowd gasped in disbelief when informed by police Chief Beck “please, listen, we do not teach police officers to take knives away from people.”
A report on Friday in the Los Angeles Times puts a further question mark over the credibility of the police report. Bicycle Officer Frank Hernandez, the officer who fired the shots that killed Jamines, had been previously accused of improperly using deadly force when he shot and wounded a 19-year-old man, Joseph Wolf, in December 2008.
After discovering that they had shot an innocent, unarmed youth, the officers involved concocted a story, that the youth had waved a gun and tried to flee from Officer Hernandez and his partner.
RichardWanke.Com 