Alfred Olango needed help but El Cajon cops killed him

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What happened to Alfred Olango is a person’s worst nightmare and the very reason why many people of color are afraid to call the police for help.

After hearing about the news today of Alfred Olango, I overheard a woman saying she has a mentally ill son. One time while they were out, he wouldn’t come out a public bathroom. He stayed in the bathroom for at least an hour because she didn’t want to cause a scene. The saddest part of her reasoning of not calling the police was because she didn’t want the officers to hurt her son. She felt they wouldn’t understand his disability. This mother is white.

It is not a sentiment that just people of color share about police as we watch the killings of unarmed people by police.

When Alfred Olango’s sister called the police to help her brother,  who was having an episode, she never expected her brother to die.

“Why couldn’t you tase him? I told you he is sick – and you guys shot him!” Olango’s sister can be heard telling officers in a video posted to Facebook in the aftermath of the shooting.

“I called police to help him, not to kill him.”

Police from the El Cajon suburb of San Diego released a statement late on Tuesday night, several hours after the shooting outside the Broadway Village shopping centre, confirming the man died in a hospital.

The police say Alfred Olango ignored demands to remove his hands from his pockets and “pulled out an object”.

Davis said one officer used a stun-gun against Olango while another fired his weapon because they felt threatened.

“At one point, the subject rapidly drew an object from his front pants pocket, placed both hands together and extended them rapidly toward the officer taking up what appeared to be a shooting stance,” said in the statement.

The two officers who have been with the force for 20 years were put on administrative leave.

But angry witnesses say Olango was suffering from a seizure before the police arrived. Local news agency CBS8 reported that “several witnesses alleged that the officers were unduly quick to open fire and suggested that their actions had been influenced by the fact that they were dealing with a black man, one they described as mentally challenged”.

“One man angrily told reporters at the news conference that the victim was suffering a seizure prior to the shooting, and another described seeing him with his hands raised at the moment the shots sounded,” CBS8 said.

The shooting immediately prompted protests in the suburb of San Diego, leaving protesters angry over another killing of an unarmed black man.

According to Mapping Police Violence , Olango became the 217th black American to be killed by police so far this year.