LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Police Chief Charlie Beck pleaded for calm and vowed his department would conduct an exhaustive investigation into a bicycle officer's fatal shooting of a drunken day laborer with a knife.
But his words did little to dissuade demonstrators, who spilled into the streets for a second straight night Tuesday -- some to pray and light candles and others to pelt a police station near downtown Los Angeles with eggs, rocks and bottles.
Police reported 22 arrests on Tuesday night, mainly for failure to disperse and unlawful assembly, Officer Karen Rayner said.
Officers fired at least two rounds of nonlethal foam projectiles at demonstrators, Rayner said.
Some protesters pushed rolling metal trash bins at officers and tossed household items from apartment buildings.
"People were throwing televisions, air conditioning units, miscellaneous furniture and other objects from the windows," Lt. Cory Palka said.
Guatemalan immigrant Manuel Jamines, 37, was shot twice by a police officer Sunday afternoon near MacArthur Park, a poor neighborhood packed with recent immigrants from Central America.
In the wake of the protests, authorities scheduled a community meeting Wednesday evening at a local school.
On Monday, four people were arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor inciting a riot, and others threw rocks and bottles at police, slightly injuring three officers, Officer Bruce Borihanh said.
On Tuesday, about 300 protesters took their complaints to the police station only two blocks from where Jamines died, said Lt. Andrew Neiman. Officers tried to move the demonstrators away from the station and keep them away from the park.
Beck said the incident involving Jamines started when someone flagged down three bicycle officers to tell them a man was threatening people with a knife.
The officers approached the suspect and told him in Spanish and English to put down the weapon. Instead, Jamines raised the knife above his head and lunged at Officer Frank Hernandez, a 13-year veteran of the department, Beck said.
Eyewitness accounts from six civilians, nine police personnel and two fire department staff indicate Hernandez fired twice "in immediate defense of life," Beck said. Jamines, 37, died at the scene.
Investigators recovered a bloody, 6-inch knife at the scene but didn't know where the blood came from.
Beck said the timeline was based on preliminary interviews. He said the department's Force Investigation Division will conduct a thorough, transparent probe.
The three officers involved in the shooting have been temporarily reassigned during the investigation.
Jamines had a wife and three children -- ages 13, 6 and 8 -- in his hometown of Mazatenango, Guatemala, according to his cousin Juan Jaminez, 38. He came to the United States six years ago to find work as a day laborer and spent most of his time looking for jobs in a Home Depot parking lot near his home.
Published: Thu, Sep 9, 2010
