Protesters chanting “Hands up, don’t shoot!” have gathered in El Cajon, California, where an unarmed Black male was fatally shot by police Tuesday.
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The name of the victim, Alfred Olango, began trending on Twitter in the evening after his sister reportedly called police to the scene at 1 p.m. local time over fears he was having a psychotic episode.
Police arrived at the scene shortly afterwards and shot Olango, who was walking the streets and died some hours later from his injuries.
The officers involved in the shooting claim Olango was acting erratically and pulled an object from his pocket. "When (the police officers) contacted him, he failed to comply with the directives that he was given," said El Cajon Police Lt. Rob Ransweiler.
El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis told a press conference Tuesday evening that Olango “rapidly drew an object from his front pants pocket, placed both hands together on it, and extended it rapidly toward the officer taking what appeared to be a shooting stance putting the object in the officer's face.”
But according to eyewitnesses, the victim was having a seizure at the time of the shooting. Police Chief Davis has since confirmed the victim was not holding a firearm at the time of the shooting.
First Amendment Violated?
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Rumbie Mubaiwa, an eyewitness, recorded proceedings via Facebook Live, attracting tens of thousands of followers. “The police did it again ... They shot another unarmed black person as usual,” she says in the video.
In the Facebook stream, Olango’s sister can also be heard shouting: “Why couldn’t you guys tase him? Why, why, why? I called so many times to help him. I called you to help me but you killed my brother.”
Meanwhile, a separate passerby, Michael Ray Rodriguez, says Olango “had his hands up” when he was shot. "I seen two officers with their firearm on him... The man’s hands are up. No shirt. He didn’t have no shirt."
You can watch the full video here:
According to NBC 7 San Diego, after Olango was shot police confiscated the mobile phones of eyewitnesses. Citing the example of Maria, an employee at the Los Panchos restaurant in El Cajon, police entered the building and confiscated all cell phones from employees.
San Diego’s ACLU chapter has since published a statement in response to the incident, citing the reports as “disturbing” and pointing out that “confiscating cell phones is a violation of the Fourth Amendment and the First Amendment under the U.S. Constitution.”
“The First Amendment issues are also significant, because by seizing phones, police would likely be preventing the dissemination of video captured by bystanders,” adds the statement.
No End in Sight
The shooting of Alfred Olango comes after renewed protests and focus on police killings of Black people after the death of Keith Lamont Scott on Sept. 20.
Days of protests rocked Charlotte after Scott was gunned down as activists accused police of worsening relations with the local community by initially withholding the release of dashcam and body camera footage to the public.
On Tuesday, Black Lives Matter activists and community members outraged over Scott's killing demanded the resignation of the city's mayor, police chief and city council members for their handling of the investigation.
Police have now killed close to 200 Black people in 2016 alone, according to "The Counted," a database set up by the Guardian to document police killings in the United States. In 2015, over 250 Black people were killed by police in the country.
A 2012 study by the Malcolm X Grassroots movement revealed that a Black person was killed by police, vigilantes, or private security personnel every 28 hours in the United States.
Last week, a United Nations working group report compared the police killing of Black people in the U.S. to the racist lynchings that took place in the 19th and 20th centuries.