Demonstrators were scheduled to gather in front of the South Los Angeles sheriff's station Saturday afternoon to protest this week's fatal shooting of Dijon Kizzee by deputies in the Westmont area.
The protest at 1310 W. Imperial Highway is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m., according to Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. A post on BLMLA's Twitter account calls on protesters to “bring your bikes, roller skates, skateboards and energy.''
It also asks demonstrators to wear masks due to the spread of coronavirus. The protest follows two earlier this week and comes during a weekend of potentially record-breaking hear in Los Angeles.
Kizzee was fatally shot at 3:15 p.m. Monday during a confrontation with deputies near West 109th Place and South Budlong Avenue. Sheriff's officials said Kizzee was riding a bicycle in the area and deputies stopped him for an unspecified vehicle code violation. After he was stopped, Kizzee allegedly tried to run away, according to the sheriff's department.
“Our suspect was holding some items of clothing in his hands, punched one of the officers in the face and dropped items in his hands,'' Lt. Brandon Dean said. “The deputies noticed that inside the clothing items that he dropped was a black, semiautomatic handgun, at which time a deputy-involved-shooting occurred.''
The sheriff's department has said KIzzee “made a motion toward the firearm.''
“He dropped the towel, put his hands in the air,” a witness told NBCLA. “The people were saying, ‘Don’t shoot.’ He didn’t have no gun in his hands because when he dropped the towel he put his hands up.”
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing Kizzee's family, said the he was shot in the back more than 20 times, although there's been no confirmation of the number of shots fired.
The deputies who shot Kizzee were removed from the field pending a review, as is standard procedure, the sheriff's department announced Tuesday night.
The shooting prompted protest demonstrations Monday night and Tuesday night, and activists demanded that the deputies involved in the shooting be arrested and prosecuted.
"Right now, I'm sad, and I'm mad at the same time," said Kizee's aunt, Fletcher Fair, at a Tuesday morning news conference. "Someone riding a bike shouldn't be shot.
"He should be as free as anybody else. My nephew was sweet. He loved his mom and his little brother."
Sheriff Alex Villanueva, speaking at the Board of Supervisors' meeting Tuesday, did not discuss details of the shooting but offered his condolences to Kizzee's relatives.
The deputies were not wearing body cameras, so deputies were looking for security and cell phone footage to aid the department's investigation. In June, a report released by the Los Angeles County Office of Inspector General said the LA County Sheriff’s Department would roll out body-worn cameras at the end of the third quarter of 2020.
