LAPD Chief Beck is heckled and booed at the meeting." />
LAPD Chief Beck is heckled and booed at the meeting.
Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck drew boos and was called an assassin Wednesday night at a community meeting held in an attempt to defuse tensions over the police shooting death of a knife-wielding day laborer.
The first time Beck tried to speak at the meeting at the John H. Liechty Middle School, he met so much resistance he stopped. He came back and read a statement from a woman who was allegedly attacked by the man who was killed in which she called the officers who came to her defense "angels who descended from heaven."
Beck was again was booed. Beck persisted, saying that there will be a fair investigation.
At Sixth Street and Union Avenue where 37-year-old Manuel Jamines of Guatemala was shot and killed by police at about 1 p.m. on Sunday, curious neighbors came out to line the streets, while officers were on nearby rooftops and in helicopters hovering above.
The NBCLA news helicopter recorded images Wednesday night of police in mass at 6th Street and Union Avenue. There was a broadcast report a couple of people had thrown bottles at police. No one was arrested in that incident.
It was a massive show of force by LAPD in Westlake. Helicopters hovered overhead and officers, continuing on a modified tactical alert, patrolled the street.
Witnesses have said Jamines may have been drunk and out of order, but police did not need to kill him.
Police said Jamines ignored repeated orders in English and Spanish to drop the knife he was holding and was advancing toward an officer when he was fatally shot.
Beck said the interaction between officers and Jamines lasted about 40 seconds.
"There was very, very little opportunity to do much more than what was done,'' he said. Beck said bicycle officers don't always carry Tasers or other non-lethal weapons.
The LA Times reported Wednesday night that the officer has been involved in two previous shootings. According to the Times, the officer shot and wounded two people.
"If we had any concerns about his ability to use deadly force, he wouldn't be out in the field," Beck said in an interview with the Times. "Each of these [shootings] need to be looked at in their individual contexts."
Citing police officials and records, the Times said that Officer Frank Hernandez, a 13-year department veteran, shot a female robbery victim in 1999 when the woman allegedly pointed a handgun at Hernandez and his partner and refused orders to drop the weapon. Her injury was not life-threatening.
In 2008, the Times reported Hernandez shot an 18-year-old assault suspect who tried to flee, then pointed a gun at Hernandez and another officer. Hernandez shot the man once, wounding him.
The Los Angeles Police Protective League Board of Directors released a statement earlier Wednesday, and it was less conciliatory than Beck's statements at the community meeting.
"If an intoxicated man is reckless enough to threaten innocent people with a knife, causing one resident to flag down passing officers for help, it should come as no surprise that he may do something as irrational as turn on the uniformed bicycle officers with that knife in an attempt to kill them.
"Likewise, any person, whether or not they speak English, or who has had too much to drink, should understand that threatening officers with a knife will result in a swift and appropriate response by police, and if necessary, it will include the use of deadly force. It was precisely that combination of behavior on the part of Manuel Jamines on September 5 that precipitated his death.
"Various community “activists,” including the Revolutionary Communist Party, are attempting to gin this shooting up into a controversy, agitating a small handful of others to conduct “protests” of this shooting. The pathetic attempt to excuse the armed advance on the responding officers by claiming the man “did not speak English” only highlights the inanity of the “protest.” For the record, the officers gave him commands in English and Spanish, not that it matters because getting drunk and threatening bystanders and then LAPD officers with a knife is dangerous and self-destructive in any language.
"This was not and should not be a controversial shooting. Certainly this was a tragic incident and undoubtedly uncomfortable for people in the area to witness, but police work isn’t pretty. Police officers don’t get paid to get stabbed, nor do we possess magical powers or weapons that allow the seamless disarming of armed and dangerous individuals. When an individual, armed with a deadly weapon, makes a decision (however poor that decision is) to advance on police officers, then that individual is solely responsible for whatever the consequences may be," the statement concluded.
