LAPD Shoot And Kill Homeless Man As Original Video Gains 1.4M Facebook Views [Video]

Warning: The below video contains strong language and violence as it shows LAPD shooting a homeless man on Skid Row.

A violent video with very strong language is making the rounds online on Sunday evening, March 1, whereby Anthony Blackburn uploaded a new video six hours ago to his Facebook page, which represents approximately 4:43 p.m. ET.

“Homeless man just killed by police minutes ago downtown L.A.”

In the video, whose Facebook version alone has gained 1,400,521 views in that short time, Los Angeles police can be seen interacting with several people in downtown L.A., near the busy and famous Skid Row section of Los Angeles. The video has also been posted to YouTube, under the title “LAPD shoot homeless man in downtown LA 3/1/15,” wherein the four-minute long video is also going viral — even though it’s hard to tell everything that’s going on from the vantage point of the videographer.

According to ABC7, the homeless man was a Skid Row suspect who was shot and killed by L.A. police after the cops responded to a call that came in regarding a robbery. LAPD Sgt. Barry Montgomery said that a taser may have been used by the cops on the homeless man, but their investigation is still trying to clear up if the man was indeed tasered, and they are urging witnesses of the shooting to contact the police.

“The preliminary investigation revealed that during that altercation, at least one less than lethal device, a Taser, was deployed. However, at this time, we still do not know if that Taser did strike the suspect.”

The police officers in L.A. can be seen getting into altercations with the homeless man on the sidewalk, and a very thin woman retrieves one of the nightsticks dropped to the ground by one of the officers, and holds it up towards the cops in a defensive mode.

“Get off him! Get off him!”

A barrage of curse words can be heard as the woman is taken down violently by the police officers, who then handcuff the woman. That’s when the homeless man keeps struggling with the cops in the background of the video — as four of the police have wrestled him to the ground, reports the Los Angeles Times. Soon after, several shots ring out, which cause the cursing and cries of disbelief to continue in the video. The homeless man can then be seen lying still on the pavement as sirens scream in the background.

“Drop the gun. Drop the gun.”

As expected, the reaction to such a violent video has been swift from Facebook users who are commenting below the original video that shows the homeless man being shot. It has been shared nearly 70,000 times since being uploaded to the social networking site, with various reactions on either side of the melee pouring in as people express their view of the incident, whether it be a mistrust of L.A. police or views against the homeless man for scuffling with the police.

As reported by the Inquisitr, a different video that showed a cop shooting and killing a homeless man in West Monroe, Louisiana, also recently went viral.

[Image via YouTube video LAPD shooting homeless man]