El Cajon, California: Protesters yelled “murder” and demanded on Wednesday a federal investigation into the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man in Southern California, just as racially charged anger over two similar incidents during the past two weeks had begun to subside.
Tuesday’s midafternoon shooting unfolded after two officers responded to several calls about a mentally unstable person walking in traffic and confronted the man behind a restaurant in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon, according to local police.
Just moments after the African American man was shot and killed by El Cajon police Tuesday, his sister was captured in an eyewitness video as she wept and screamed at officers, saying she told authorities her brother was mentally ill.
In the video posted on YouTube (some explicit language), the man’s sister said she told officers he was sick and needed help. She said she called police three times but instead should have called a “crisis communication team.”
“Don’t you guys have a crisis communication team to talk to somebody mentally sick?” she asked an officer.
“Why couldn’t you take him? she asked officers. “Why, why, why, why?”
At one point, the woman yelled, “Oh, my God, you killed my brother!” several times.
“I called for help. I didn’t call you guys to kill him,” she told officers as she shrieked.
Amid outrage and protests over the death of the man — identified as Alfred Okwera Olango — El Cajon’s mayor vowed a full investigation and said the FBI has joined the probe of the incident.
Civil rights activists and several hundred protesters gathered outside the police department, where they chanted “murder,” “justice for Alfred Olango” and “black lives matter.” Some then marched on toward the scene of the shooting, joined by more demonstrators, as the swelling crowd stopped at times to block traffic.
“We are not going to stop until we get justice,” the Reverend Shane Harris, president of the National Action Network’s San Diego chapter, said at the demonstration. “We do not trust local prosecutors to investigate local police.”
“The most important thing to take away from this meeting today is a tragedy occurred In El Cajon yesterday. We lost a life. Nobody wants to see the loss of a life,” Mayor Bill Wells said at a Wednesday afternoon press conference.
“The family is devastated. The person who lost his life is devastated. Even the police officers involved in the shooting are devastated, and certainly the community is devastated.”
Wells also spoke of the death in personal terms. “I saw a man who was distraught, a man who was acting out like he was in great pain. I saw him get gunned down and killed. If it was my son, I would be devastated.”
Relatives had given Olango’s age as 30, but in confirming his identity Wednesday, police gave a birth date that put his age at 38.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis appealed for calm. The predominantly white city is home to some 100,000 people, including many residents who are immigrants from the Middle East and Africa.
“I implore the community to be patient with us, work with us, look at the facts at hand before making any judgement,” he said.
“Now is the time for calm,” he said. “Now is the time to allow the investigation to shed light on this event and we plan to be open and transparent within the rules of the law.”
Davis said Olango’s sister called police and indicated that her brother was “not acting like himself.” He had allegedly been walking in traffic in the 800 block of Broadway before a pair of officers arrived at 2.11pm. Tuesday and found him behind a restaurant, Davis said.
He ignored multiple instructions from an officer and “concealed his hand in his pants pockets,” Davis said. Olango paced back and forth as the officers talked to him, then “rapidly drew an object from his front pants pockets, placed both hands together on it and extended it rapidly toward [one] officer, taking what appeared to be a shooting stance,” the chief said.
Olango, he said, pointed the object at the officer’s face. Police said Wednesday evening that the object was a vape smoking device, which officers have recovered.
“The vape has an allsilver cylinder that is approximately 1” diameter and 3” long that was pointed toward the officer,” police said in a statement.
At that point, the other officer fired a Taser and the officer who had the object pointed at him fired his handgun, striking Olango. Davis declined to say the number of shots that were fired. No firearm was found at the scene.
After the shooting, officers provided first aid until paramedics arrived and took Olango to a hospital.
A witness to the incident made a cell phone video, which was voluntarily turned over to police. The department has so far declined to release the video to the public.
A Facebook page for Alfred Olango identifies him as a head cook at a Hooters restaurant and that he is originally from Uganda. It says he went to San Diego High School and studied at San Diego Mesa College.
Hours after the shooting, protests erupted in the San Diego County city, with friends of the man’s family saying he suffers from a mental illness and did not pose a threat to the officers.
Most of the demonstrators voiced concerns that the shooting was racially motivated.
By 1pm on Wednesday, a crowd of roughly 100 demonstrators had marched from the police station to the scene of the shooting several blocks away, as a cordon of roughly 25 San Diego County Sheriff’s deputies stood nearby. The deputies wore riot helmets and held long wooden batons at port arms.
During the march, protesters momentarily blocked traffic at the intersection of Magnolia and Main streets downtown. As car horns honked, either in protest or frustration, the demonstrators chanted “black lives matter” and thrust their fists in the air.
Their foreheads dripping sweat under an unrelenting sun, activists held signs that read “release the 911 call” and “No justice, no peace!” — a rallying cry heard at similar protests throughout the nation.
“This stuff has been going on around the country for two years,” said JJ Balancier, 27. “Now, it’s finally hitting home. You see it in Ferguson, but now it’s in our city.”
Activists claimed that the city has a history of racism and targeting young men.
Residents are afraid, said Christopher Rice-Wilson, associate director at Alliance San Diego.
