The police investigation into an emotionally-charged officer-involved shooting death near MacArthur Park continued Monday.
Protestors marched outside the Los Angeles police station near MacArthur Park today, as police officials said a bike patrolman shot a man to death on a busy street because he was very drunk and was threatening a woman with a knife.
An officer responding to a report of the knife-wielding man near Union Avenue and Sixth Street fatally shot the suspect shortly after 1 p.m. Sunday when he did not immediately follow orders to drop the weapon, said Officer Gregory Baek, a department spokesman.
Police called extra officers to the Rampart Community Police Station at about 1 p.m. Monday, when a officer said about 30-40 people were protesting outside. Another 30-40 people were also gathered at the shooting scene, two blocks to the west on busy Sixth Street.
At the downtown headquarters, a police spokesman said witnesses have told them the man who was shot had been a habitual drunk who, moments before he was killed, was threatening a woman with a knife. And he said tensions on Sixth Street were already high because LAPD officers have been preventing illegal street vendors who gather there from peddling their wares.
People who said they saw the shooting said the man may not have understood the orders. At least one shot hit him in the head, according to broadcast reports.
Police withheld the man's name but did say he was from Guatemala and was born in 1972 . An autopsy is pending.
Police Cmdr. Blake Chow, speaking at the scene, said someone flagged down two bicycle officers and told them about the man with the knife.
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"Officers made contact with an individual, ordered him to drop the knife, apparently he failed to do so, and an officer-involved shooting ensued," he said.
Area resident Kelly Flor, who identified herself as a community activist, told NBCLA the fatally shot man did not speak English. "He could not speak English, so he could not understand what the officer was saying, and after that the officer proceeded in shooting him twice in the head."
Police claimed the officers gave orders several times in Spanish and English. There was no word yet on why the officers did not use less lethal force to subdue the man.
