Enemies in Blue

The recent police killing of a homeless man in Los Angeles shows how the capitalist state treats the marginalized.


Outraged at the police shooting of a homeless man, hundreds of people took to the streets of Los Angeles yesterday, marching from the site on Skid Row where Charley Robinet was slain to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) headquarters, where some went inside and aired their grievances at the Police Commission meeting.

In the latest chilling video of a cop-on-civilian shooting, three officers tussle with the thirty-nine-year-old homeless black man and then fire five shots, killing the man while he lies on his back. Robinet, a French national who Skid Row residents knew by the moniker “Africa,” had reportedly been living among the area’s homeless population for more than four months.

In the video, Robinet and another person can be seen in an altercation with six officers shortly before noon on March 1. While two of the officers managed to wrestle the other person to the ground after she picked up a police baton, Robinet — who was by then lying on his back and being punched by officers near his tent where the initial altercation began — is shot seconds after someone is heard shouting, “Drop the gun!” No gun was recovered.

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