Unarmed Man Shot Dead in LA

According to KTLA News

Family members said Tuesday that a 25-year-old man was complying with police orders when he was fatally shot by LAPD officers in the Florence neighborhood South Los Angeles.

Patrol officers had “conducted an investigative stop” in the 200 block of 65th Street, and “during the stop a struggle ensued” and police opened fire, an LAPD news release issued midmorning Tuesday stated.

The man was transported to a hospital where he underwent surgery, according to Officer Sara Faden, spokeswoman for the LAPD.

He later succumbed to his injuries, police confirmed.

Police were being tight-lipped with details about the incident because of a “gathering” at the scene of the shooting, Faden said.

A woman who said she was the deceased man’s mother identified him in a phone call to KTLA as Ezell Ford.

“My heart is so heavy,” Tritobia Ford said in an interview Tuesday evening. “My son was a good kid. He didn’t deserve to die the way he did.”

Her son was lying on the ground and complying with the officers’ commands when he was shot three times, Tritobia Ford said.

In the aftermath of the shooting, she said, police refused to inform her of where Ezell Ford was hospitalized.

An LAPD supervisor at the scene of the shooting was unaware of anyone being denied information, Faden said Tuesday.

The victim’s family members interviewed on camera at the scene of the shooting on Monday night supported Tritobia Ford’s account.

A man who did not give his name and identified himself only as a cousin of the victim described what he witnessed, saying he had been around the corner when the altercation first occurred.

“They laid him out and for whatever reason, they shot him in the back, knowing mentally, he has complications. Every officer in this area, from the Newton Division, knows that — that this child has mental problems,” the man said.

“The excessive force … there was no purpose for it. The multiple shootings in the back while he’s laying down? No. Then when the mom comes, they don’t try to console her … they pull the billy clubs out.”