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Moments before he died, Charly Keunang took a swing at a cop. This wasn’t an ordinary jab or hook. In cell phone video filmed by a bystander in March, the 43-year-old homeless man can be seen spinning toward a group of Los Angeles police officers, arms flailing. He looks more like the Tasmanian Devil than Mike Tyson.
The whirlwind attack lasts a few seconds, and then ends just as quickly as it began. Keunang, a Cameroonian immigrant who was known as “Africa” on Los Angeles’ Skid Row, careens wildly into the incoming fist of one of the officers. The cop punches Keunang in the face and takes him to the ground, where the scuffle continues.
“Stop resisting,” officers yell as they try to subdue Keunang. Four officers blanket him, and you can hear the sound of one of their stun guns clicking. “He has my gun. He has my gun,” screams one. The officers then open fire.
An autopsy later shows that two bullets struck Keunang in the chest at close range. Two entered elsewhere on his torso, and two hit his left arm. Keunang was pronounced dead at the scene, his name among at least 61 unarmed black men killed by police this year, according to a database compiled by The Guardian.
The eyewitness video of Keunang’s death went viral, sparking protests from Angelenos who argued the shooting was further proof that the city’s police department should overhaul its use of force policy and rethink its approach to dealing with the mentally ill.
