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Knife-Wielding Man Shot Dead By Police Officers In Bell, California

By Rahul Srinivas
Published on: 11:22 PST, Jul 7, 2016

In yet another case of police shooting in the United States, a 36-year-old knife-wielding man was shot dead by police officers in California on Thursday morning. According to KTLA, three police officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department were involved in the shooting that happened in the city of Bell. Initial reports say that the incident happened at around 8:20 a.m., local time. This has been confirmed by G. Medrano, the sheriff’s deputy.

The shooting was the result of what is being described as a “domestic dispute” between and man and woman. According to investigators working on the case, the dispute started at a Jack-in-the Box restaurant located near Florence and Atlantic avenues. The woman reportedly also had a child with her. The 36-year-old man is reported to have assaulted the woman while they were inside the restaurant. The man was later seen walking into a nearby 7-Eleven store with the woman and the child closely following him. The duo were reportedly still arguing while they entered the store.

Minutes later, officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department arrived on the scene after they received several calls from the 7-Eleven store saying that a knife-wielding man was inside the store. According to initial reports, after the officers reached the store, they told the man to drop the knife, which was of the folding type. The man, however, refused to comply to the orders given by the officers. The man is then reported to have advanced towards the officers who then opened fire at the man in self defense.

Sgt. Bill Cotter of the Sheriff’s Department described the incident later in a news conference.

“When the Bell officers arrived here, they encountered a man armed with a knife who was noncompliant with their orders.”

Julio Ruiz, an eyewitness to the entire incident, told KTLA that the knife-wielding man was “yelling” and was being very belligerent. He added that the instructions from the officers were very simple and clear. They were, in his words, “simple police commands” which asked the man to put his hands up and drop to the ground.

“There was a police officer, had a man at gunpoint, giving him instructions to comply. The man was not compliant,” Julio recalls.

“He was not interested at all,” Ruiz further added.

After realizing that the man was in no mood to comply with their orders, the officer on the scene asked for backup.

Even after the arrival of backup officers, the man did not relent, and at one point tried to advance towards the officers which prompted them to open fire. Witnesses add that they heard between five to 10 gunshots when the shooting happened. The man, who has not been identified yet, was wounded and was quickly taken to a local hospital where he was later pronounced dead. None of the responding officers were injured in the incident. At this time, it is not known how the man and the woman were related.

The news of this police shooting incident in Bell, California, is the latest in a spree of such cases being reported from the U.S. In the span of two days, the country has witnessed three deaths that involved the usage of lethal force by police officers. In the first incident, 37-year-old Alton Sterling was shot dead by officers from Baton Rouge under controversial circumstances. This was followed by the death of Philando Castile, a 32-year-old man who was shot dead by Minnesota police officers during a routine traffic stop. Minutes after the second incident happened, Castile’s girlfriend posted a horrific video from the scene of the incident showing her boyfriend in a bloodstained T-shirt slumping onto the backseat of a car and losing consciousness. He, too, was later proclaimed dead at a local hospital.

[Image Via Shutterstock]

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