The LAPD shot and killed a robbery suspect in a brawl that appears to have started after the suspect took a swing at an officer attempting to arrest him:

An amateur videographer on Sunday recorded a confrontation between a man and police on L.A’s Skid Row moments before he was shot to death while held down on the ground.

The incident occurred around noon.

The video was posted on websites within hours of the death by a man named Anthony Blackburn, including on his Facebook page. Here is a link to his Facebook page. The video is NSFW (not safe for work), filled with expletives and could be disturbing to some.]

The video — which was downloaded more than 3.2 million times in about 10 hours — shows the man fighting with four Los Angeles police officers on the sidewalk in front of the Union Rescue Mission, 545 S. San Pedro St. A police spokesman said officers had tried a Taser to subdue the alleged robbery suspect.

“During that struggle, at least one less-than-lethal device, a Taser, was deployed,” said Sgt. Barry Montgomery of the media relations office.
“However, at this time we do not know if that Taser struck the suspect,” he said.

The video does not show that, but apparently picks up as the man is pushed to the sidewalk as four officers grab his flailing limbs and his torso. As two
other officers push an intervening man away, the camera angle is blocked and does not detail exactly what happened.

The sound of a Taser is audible. Someone is then heard yelling, “Drop the gun,” right before shots are heard.

First one shot, and then four others in rapid succession.

Let me explain how not to get shot by police.

1. Don’t commit a crime. LAPD officers were responding to the report of a robbery.
2. If encountered by officers, interact with them peacefully. While the version of the video shown above doesn’t show it, the conflict portion began when the suspect took a wild swing at a cop, attempting to knock the officer out. The officer steps out of the way of the punch and then wrestled the man to the ground. You’ll note that a child with the suspect picked up an officer’s nightstick, and appeared to be contemplating using it when he was taken into custody as well.
3. If an officer brings you to the ground, don’t attempt to take his weapon. The suspect continued to struggle with officers, and apparently got his hands on the officer’s weapon. Police officers tend to take a dim view of your attempt to kill them.
4. If you use deadly force against officers, expect them to use deadly force against you. They have few options at that point. In this instance, it appears that one of more officers was attempting to control the suspect’s weapon hand as a taser was used. You can clearly hear it crackling in the video, but apparently had little to no effect. A total of three officers then saw something in the suspects behavior that caused them to fire. There are others who have done a frame-by-frame analysis of this video who think that the suspect actually fired the isolated first shot, and that officers did not draw and fire their weapons until after the suspect fired first.

Surprising no one, “social justice” activists are complaining that the officers were at fault, while holding the violent suspect who attacked the officers and grabbed on officer’s gun completely blameless.

That isn’t how the world works.