Photo by Neon Tommy/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Protesters at a rally last year after the police shooting of day laborer Manuel Jamines, September 10, 2010
The Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners ruled yesterday regarding last year’s fatal police shooting of day laborer Manuel Jamines, backing the department’s position that the officer’s decision to shoot the Guatemalan immigrant was not out of line. The shooting in the Westlake district, which took place in September, triggered violent street protests in the days that followed.
Jamines, who was 37, was shot by department veteran Frank Hernandez, who fired two shots. Some witnesses described Jamines as intoxicated and waving a knife at passersby and later at police; other witnesses said that Jamines, who spoke a Mayan dialect, dropped the knife before the officer fired. Hernandez had been involved in previous shootings.
Since announced, the ruling has generated a small protest, a fair amount of media coverage, and various reactions online. A post on KPCC’s Facebook page today asked the question, “Do you think officer Frank Hernandez was justified in shooting Guatemalan day laborer Manuel Jamines?”
Salvador Velasco replied:
Probably within the context of the law. One could argue the man was asking for it, after all here’s a “drunk guy on the corner waving a knife around”. What would you do if he came at you, after all these cops are human. That being said, can we train police officers to aim for non- lethal areas of the bodies or use their can of mace up before firing away, after all it wasn’t a gun he was waving around at them.
John Faulkner wrote:
Additional measures could have been taken with shooting-to-kill as the last option.
