Authorities in California are investigating why police shot and killed a man in a wheelchair who allegedly wouldn’t drop a butcher’s knife.
Anthony Lowe, who was 36 and black, was shot and killed on January 26 in the Los Angeles area. He had both legs amputated.
Police say that after he stabbed someone, he threatened them. “They killed my son,” Mr. Lowe’s mother said.
It comes after the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee, which has made people pay more attention to police killings.
The thing that happened to Mr. Lowe in Huntington Park was caught on camera by people who were there at the time.
The grainy video shows a part of the fight where Mr. Lowe is holding a long, shiny object and moving away from officers on the stumps of his legs. The shooting is not shown in that clip.
The Huntington Park Police Department said in a statement on January 30 that officers had responded to a stabbing and that the victim had given a description of the person who did it.
The suspect is said to have gotten out of his wheelchair, walked up to the victim, and stabbed him in the chest with a 12-inch butcher knife. He then allegedly got back into his wheelchair and ran away from the scene.
The victim had “a life-threatening stab wound that caused a collapsed lung and internal bleeding,” according to a police statement.
According to the police statement, when officers caught up with Mr. Lowe, he “ignored the officer’s verbal commands and threatened to move forward or throw the knife at officers.”
Police say that they shot Mr. Lowe after two failed attempts to take him down with Tasers.
Lt. Hugo Reynaga of the Huntington Park Police Department told the Los Angeles Times that investigators had gotten video of the shooting from a nearby business, but they do not plan to make the video public.
He also said that police officers in Huntington Park do not wear body cameras.
He told the newspaper, “He tried to run away, but every time he turned around and acted like he was going to throw the knife at him, they shocked him.”
“They tried to use the less dangerous Taser on this guy. And because it didn’t work, they had to switch to something that did.
The two officers are on paid leave while an investigation is going on. No one has called them by name.
On Tuesday, Mr. Lowe’s family members and activists called for the officers who shot him to be held responsible.
Dorothy Lowe, Mr. Lowe’s mother, said at a news conference, “They killed my son while he was in a wheelchair and had no legs.” “They really do need to do something.