Lavell Ford lights a candle as he gazes down at the area where his brother Ezell Ford was killed recently. Hundreds join in a march and rally along Broadway to protest the fatal police shooting of Ezell Ford, who died during a confrontation with police in South Los Angeles. 65th Street and Broadway Thursday Aug. 14, 2014. (AP Photo/The Orange County Register, Ed Crisostomo)
Marking a trend that seems to have escalated over the last month, another unarmed Black man was killed by law enforcement. At 8:12 p.m. Aug. 11, officers responded to a shooting incident at the intersection of West 65th Street and South Broadway in Los Angeles, according to the police department.
Moments later, the officers stopped a young man, later identified as 25-year-old Ezell Ford, walking in the 200 block of 65th, authorities report. An encounter occurred between Ford and the police, in which the police opened fire, killing Ford.
According to the Huffington Post, residents in Ford’s neighborhood mentioned that he was not involved in gang activity.
Hundreds join in a march and rally along Broadway to protest the fatal police shooting of Ezell Ford, who died during a confrontation with police in South Los Angeles on Thursday Aug. 14, 2014. (AP Photo/The Orange County Register, Ed Crisostomo)
Leroy Hill, who was a key eyewitness to this incident, told the Huffington Post, that he heard three shots. “He wasn’t a gang banger at all,” Hill explained to the Huffington Post, “I was sitting across the street when it happened. So as he was walking down the street, the police approached him, whatever was said I couldn’t hear it, but the cops jumped out of the car and rushed him over here into this corner. They had him in the corner and were beating him, busted him up, for what reason I don’t know, he didn’t do nothing. The next thing I know I hear a ‘pow’ while he’s on the ground. They got the knee on him. And then I hear another ‘pow.’ No hesitation. And then I hear another ‘pow.’ Three times.”
At one point while the police had Ford on the ground, but before the shooting took place, Hill said, he heard an officer yell, “Shoot him.”
According to the Huffington Post, attorney Steven Lerman said he is filing a federal lawsuit against LAPD for Ford’s family, saying that the victim was not armed and was mentally challenged. “I can’t think of more innocent circumstances,” Lerman told Huffington Post. “But to be set upon by these officer who absolutely lost control and went to deadly force. This young man, what kind of fight could he have put up? Really, this is as sickening as it is sad.”