Protesters gathered after police in El Cajon, California shot and killed an unarmed black man.
The shooting was prompted when the man reportedly pulled an object from his pocket and aimed it an officer. El Cajon police chief Jeff Davis said the man “placed both hands together on [the object] and extended it rapidly toward the officer, taking what appeared to be a shooting stance.”
According to NPR, Davis said one officer deployed a taser while a second–the one who had the object pointed at him–fired from his service gun.
The man had reportedly been acting erratically, causing his sister to call 911. She was on the scene videoing officer’s interaction with her brother when the shots were fired. The sister said, “I just called for help, and you came and killed him. Oh my God, you killed my brother. I called these people three times to help him.”
El Cajon officers do not use body cameras but have the incident recorded on a cell phone video. They are not releasing the video at this time because it is evidence in the investigation.
Protesters gathered in El Cajon Tuesday night to protest the shooting. The protests were described as “angry but peaceful.”
The officer involved shooting in El Cajon comes on the heels of a September 20 Charlotte, North Carolina, shooting in which officers shot and killed Keith Scott, who also happened to be black. Violent protests erupted in reaction to Scott’s death, although police said Scott was armed at the time. On September 27 the Associated Press reported that Scott did have a gun “on him” and the gun was stolen.
Scott did not steal the gun. Rather, he is alleged to have purchased it from a suspect who stole it.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.