Los Angeles police shot and killed a 25-year-old who his family said suffered from mental disabilities. Ezell Ford, 25, was shot Monday night and died after being transported to the hospital, according to KTLA.
The shooting comes in the wake of tense protests, stand-offs with police, and lootings over the death of Michael Brown, another in a line of unarmed young black men shot by police. KTLA does not indicate whether Ford was carrying a gun at the time of the incident, and police could not confirm for ThinkProgress whether or not Ford was armed, but the Root reports Ford was unarmed. LAPD said no officers were injured during the incident.
Los Angeles-area residents are already planning their own protest for Sunday, which was announced in a Facebook post that calls the shooting a “murder” and references Michael Brown’s death.
A woman who identified herself as Ford’s mother said he was laying on the ground at the time of the shots. And another who said he was Ford’s cousin told KTLA he was around the corner at the time of the shooting, and saw him shot after they laid him on the ground on his back. “Every officer in this area, from the Newton Division, knows that — that this child has mental problems,” he told KTLA.
A week earlier, another man died in a police confrontation in the same region of South Los Angeles. That victim was stopped in his car after he was allegedly drived erratically, and attempted to flee on foot after he exited his car, according to an LAPD news release. Officers apprehended him, and he somehow died after sustaining a “laceration” in the police car and being transferred to the hospital. The Los Angeles Times identified the man as 37-year-old Omar Abrego, and reported that he suffered a severe concussion, as well as “multiple facial and body contusions.”
In the Los Angeles area, there have been at least 303 people killed in officer-involved shootings, according to a Los Angeles Times database. The news of Michael Brown’s death was the third of an unarmed young black man killed at the hands of police to make national news in the course of a week, and Ford would be the fourth if he was unarmed. An unnamed Department of Justice official told USA Today Tuesday that the Department would conduct a national review of police tactics in light of the spate of incidents.