Homeless man shot dead by LAPD mistakenly identified as French national

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© Frederic J. Brown, AFP I People gather at a makeshift memorial for a homeless man, who went by the name of 'Africa,' who was shot and killed by LA police on March 2 in Los Angeles, California

by Rochelle van Amber and Biodun Iginla, France24 and BBC News

Latest update : 2015-03-04

A homeless man who was shot and killed by Los Angeles police officers over the weekend was a convicted bank robber who assumed the identity of a French national to enter the United States during the 1990s, officials said Tuesday.

The victim was initially identified by the Los Angeles Times as 39-year-old Charley Saturmin Robinet, a French citizen. The foreign ministry in Paris, however, denied the claim.
Axel Cruau, the French consul general in Los Angeles, told the LA Times on Tuesday that the man killed by police had stolen another man’s identity to obtain a French passport to travel to the United States over 15 years ago.
“He fooled a lot of people, including us, years ago," Cruau said, adding that the real Charley Saturmin Robinet, “is alive and in France".
The man who called himself Robinet had been convicted of armed robbery 15 years ago and jailed, according to the LA Times. He was caught with $33,500 while attempting to flee the crime scene, later telling authorities he robbed the bank to pay for acting classes at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, the newspaper reported.
He was freed in May, the LA Times said.
The man – shot dead after a struggle with police in the city's Skid Row homeless district on Sunday – was known locally as "Africa" and police have not released his name.
Los Angeles police chief Charlie Beck said Monday that the victim tried to grab a gun from one of four officers who were trying to restrain him.
Graphic video of the killing has triggered widespread criticism of police tactics, triggering angry protests outside the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) headquarters on Tuesday.
"Hey, hey, ho, ho, chief Beck's got to go!" chanted dozens of protesters.
"Who's accountable? Is it a mentally challenged individual, or poorly trained officers?" asked K.W. Tulloss, the Los Angeles chapter head of the Al Sharpton-led National Action Network.
Steve Diaz, a member of poverty lobby group the Los Angeles Community Action Network, urged a police commission that was meeting to prosecute the officers involved.
He called the shooting a "modern-day lynching" that was the result of a policy "of having extra deployment in our neighbourhood and nothing better to do than to target homeless individuals, people of low income, in the name of gentrification."
A spokesman for the LA County Coroner's office declined to confirm the identity of the victim, pending notification of next of kin.
He added that an autopsy was being carried out Tuesday to determine the cause of death.

Homeless man shot dead by LAPD identified as French national

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© Anthony Blackburn, YouTube | Screengrab of a video showing the shooting death in LA on Sunday of a homeless man identified as Charley Saturmin Robinet.

by Rochelle van Amber and Biodun Iginla, France24 and BBC News

Latest update : 2015-03-04

A homeless man killed on Skid Row by Los Angeles police was an undocumented French migrant who had been released last May from a federal prison after serving roughly 14 years for bank robbery, a law enforcement official said on Tuesday.

The man was identified as Charley Saturmin Robinet by the official who had been briefed but was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Robinet was convicted in 2000 of three federal charges for holding up a Wells Fargo branch and pistol-whipping an employee to pay for acting classes at the Beverly Hills Playhouse.
Federal prison records show he was released on May 12.
Robinet, who acknowledged being an illegal immigrant, was arrested along with an accomplice and a getaway driver after they tried to rob the bank.
Robinet was killed Sunday after a confrontation with police. Authorities say he tried to grab a probationary officer’s gun and three officers fatally shot him.

WARNING: THESE IMAGES MAY BE FOUND DISTRESSING

The three officers who fired their weapons in a videotaped struggle that left a homeless man dead were veterans of the Skid Row beat who had special training to deal with mentally ill and other people in the downtrodden area, police leaders said.
But a recently-hired officer who cried out that the man had his gun, leading to the shooting, had considerably less experience, and police didn’t immediately say how much training he had received in dealing with mentally ill people. All officers must go through at least an 11-hour course.
Police Chief Charlie Beck said some of the veteran officers had “completed our most extensive mental illness training over a 36-hour course.” Initial signs showed the officers used what they had learned during the confrontation, despite the outcome, he said.
The shooting was captured on video but exactly what happened remained unclear. The footage has been viewed by millions of people online. Several dozen people rallied Tuesday in protest of the shooting. There was a moment of silence, and participant Patrisse Cullors declared the shooting site to be “sacred ground.”
A memorial at the site of the shooting features white roses placed over a tent, blankets and clothing belonging to the man known as “Africa.” Footage showed the homeless man reaching toward the recently-hired officer’s waistband, Beck said. The officer’s gun was later found partly cocked and jammed with a round of ammunition in the chamber and another in the ejection port, indicating a struggle for the weapon, Beck said.
“You can hear the young officer who was primarily engaged in the confrontation saying that ‘He has my gun. He has my gun,”” Beck said. “He says it several times, with conviction.”
The three other officers then opened fire.
The man who was shot was black, as is the recently-hired officer who was just short of completing his probationary year on the force, police said.
The violence had echoes of the August police shooting of 25-year-old Ezell Ford, whose death in a struggle with Los Angeles officers brought demonstrations in the city. Ford was unarmed. Police said he was shot after reaching for an officer’s gun.