Demonstrators protest against fatal shooting of LA homeless man

Demonstrators took to the streets of Los Angeles on 3 March in response to the fatal shooting of a homeless man by three Los Angeles police officers in the downtown district of the city.

Police officers trying to subdue a robbery suspect in the city's skid row section shot and killed the man as he grabbed an officer's gun during a scuffle that was captured on video and went viral across social media platforms.

The demonstrators gathered to rally at the site of Sunday's shooting, at the intersection of San Pedro Street and 6th street, and marched to the Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters, approximately a mile north of the shooting site. Demonstrators held various signs and chanted "Can't kill Africa," in reference to the victim's street name, and "black lives matter".

Demonstration organisers hoped to meet with the police commissioner to deliver a list of demands so police officers patrolling skid row can improve relationships with homeless residents there.

General Jeff, a community organiser and skid row resident, said: "We need more mental health training. If it's not going to be for the police officers then we need to bring in health care professionals that are side by side with LAPD so that we can address this issue.

"The city of Los Angeles is responsible, the county of Los Angeles is responsible, the state of California is responsible and the White House in Washington D.C. is also responsible.

"This is not a skid row problem, this is not a city of Los Angeles problem, this isn't a state of California problem, this is a United States of America problem and the entire United States needs to do something about the homeless capital of America which is right here in downtown Los Angeles.

"We need to house the people, we need to get the services and we need to get real health care professionals, not the ones that are here just to earn a paycheck, the ones that are passionate enough to help the people," he said.

Among the demonstrators outside Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters were community organisers and numerous homeless residents of skid row. Skid row is a 50-block area that ranks as one of the largest concentrations of homeless people in United States.

Ali Thomas, a homeless resident of skid row who claims he witnessed the fatal shooting on Sunday, said: "I feel they need to stop killing us. They killing us one by one, they just knocking us down and they ain't going to never stop. Seems like they're going to kill us one by one until they can get us all.

"Like they say, it happened in skid row and a man had a mental issue and we got a lot of issues down in skid row, they need to worry about the issues that we got in skid row and not all this petty little stuff that they worry about in skid row and that's why I'm here."

Authorities have yet to publicly identify the man who was fatally shot, known by his street name 'Africa'. A law enforcement source has confirmed a previous report by the Los Angeles Times which identifies the man as Charley Saturmin Robinet, a French national, who was accused of pistol-whipping a bank teller during the 2000 holdup of a Wells Fargo Bank branch.

Robinet previously served time in federal prison for armed bank robbery and federal prison and court records show he was sentenced to 15 years in prison and was released from a federal facility in May.