It’s safe to say that police killings have become somewhat of a plague in this country. It continues to spread without showing signs of abating anytime soon.

Earlier this week, a homeless man, going by the moniker of “Africa,” was shot and killed in Los Angeles by police officers. The story goes that he reached for a police officer’s weapon, to which they responded by shooting him five times. A bystander got the entire ordeal on film.

Apparently, the homeless man murdered was wanted by US Marshalls for a violating probation for a robbery he committed almost fifteen years ago. He was arrested and convicted under a false name that he received while applying for a passport in France, leaving his true identity a mystery.

While watching the video, the first thing that is very apparent is the excessive amount of officers at the scene. There are a total of five officers visible in the video, which raises the question, why do they need so many officers to take in one homeless man?

Given that the video does start mid confrontation and there aren’t any clear reports of what preceded the video, it’s difficult  to draw any meaningful conclusions

Still, given the information that is there, it’s plain that there did not need to be that many officers.

You can hear the officers yell, “drop the gun” during the video, but it does not look like the homeless man had one in his hand. Reports say that he reached for the gun, but did not actually grab it. Another thing that is very clear is that as soon as the shots are fired, the officers go on the defensive and start addressing the crowd that had been drawn to  the confrontation.

Going back to the Ferguson rallies, police officers did the same thing. As soon as something bad happened, they became defensive and addressed the crowd around them, rather than worry about the situation at hand. Could it be that they knew they messed up and needed a reason to justify what they did? I couldn’t tell you, but what I can say is that excessive use of police force is the major issue here.

I don’t see much of a racial standpoint from this video, the homeless man did have a warrant out on him, and so the police going after him was justified. What wasn’t justified was the excessive use of force on the man and his death.

Reports say that officers used a Taser on him, but he continued to resist. That doesn’t give an excuse to shoot him. Even if it did, five shots is extremely excessive. One shot can be enough to impair the suspect enough to cuff him, but five shots means there was intent to kill him.

Police brutality and their excessive use of force is almost never justified, yet still continues to happen. Change needs to be made so that this kind of thing ends, because we cannot continue to fear the people who are supposed to protect us, who are supposed to uphold justice, and who are supposed to keep the peace, not destroy it.