By Robert Jablon
Associated Press
LYNWOOD, Calif. — A black man who was fatally shot by Los Angeles deputies kept holding a gun as he lay dying on the ground, authorities said Sunday in response to questions about why they continued to fire on the man after he fell to the pavement.
A close-up from security footage showed 28-year-old Nicholas Robertson stretched out on the ground with a gun in his hand. He died at the scene Saturday morning in the south Los Angeles suburb of Lynwood.
Two deputies fired 33 bullets at the man after he refused to drop the gun and walked across a busy street to a filling station where a family was pumping gas, homicide Cpt. Steven Katz said.
Witness captures dramatic video of fatal deputy-involved shooting in Lynwood https://t.co/2oUwX8tNoZ https://t.co/9Uesw8DNcT
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) December 13, 2015
“When he collapsed, his arms were underneath him and the gun was still in his hand. There was never a time when the weapon was not in his possession,” Katz said.
Asked if the officers were white, Katz said no but would not elaborate.
Police confronted Robertson as they investigated reports of a man firing a gun into the air. Witnesses said he was walking down a residential street and then through a busy commercial area holding the weapon and acting strangely.
Witnesses told authorities that Robertson reportedly fired five to six rounds and briefly went into a car wash and a pizza parlor before the deputies arrived.
Deputies spotted the man in front of the gas station and ordered him to drop the gun, but he refused, deputy Juanita Navarro-Suarez said in a statement.
Witnesses said they saw the suspect turn and point the weapon at the officers, the statement said.
Video, apparently from a cellphone, appeared on several media sites. It appears to show deputies firing some two dozen bullets, including several rounds after Robertson falls and is crawling on the ground.
“They shot him in his shoulder, and he was crawling,” Pamela Brown, Robertson’s mother-in-law, told KCAL-TV. “He left three kids behind, two daughters and a son. What, they could have Tasered him or anything.”
Sheriff Jim McDonnell promised the investigation would be handled “with the utmost professionalism and integrity” and urged anyone with information to come forward.
“In this modern age of cellphone video and instant analysis on the Internet, I would ask that we keep in mind that a thorough and comprehensive investigation is detailed and time intensive,” he said in a statement. “It will involve, not just one source of information, but numerous sources, potentially including multiple videos, physical evidence and eyewitness accounts.”
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press