Police shoot homeless man in LA

The BBC has an article (with yet another non-downloadable video) about yet another police shooting:

Police have shot and killed a homeless man during an altercation in central Los Angeles, California, in an incident caught on video (above). The graphic film shows a violent struggle between the man and several officers in the city's Skid Row area. Police say that three officers opened fire after the man tried to grab a gun from an officer. Witnesses said the dead man was known as Africa and had been homeless after treatment for mental illness.
The LAPD said officers had been responding to reports of a robbery and had attempted to use a Taser to subdue the suspect but he had "continued fighting and resisting". A witness said five officers were involved in the altercation. No other gun was recovered at the scene, LA police commander Andrew Smith said.
Last year, highly publicized killings of black men sparked weeks of protests in the US. 

LA police fatal incidents: 16
People shot dead by police in city of Los Angeles in 2014: 252
People killed by police in LA since 2000: 606
People killed by police in LA county since 2000: 38 

The victim, nicknamed Africa, had been living on the street for months, and eyewitnesses say he spent ten years in a mental health institution before winding up homeless; people who knew him said he not been violent but still exhibited "mental problems".

It is unclear from the video what exactly happened, the BBC's Alastair Leithead reports from Los Angeles. The video begins with what appears to be a black man swinging punches at four police officers in daylight, near the tents and cardboard of a pavement homeless camp. Two other officers run up to join their colleagues. As the man is knocked to the ground, a woman can be seen picking up a fallen police baton and a voice seems to shout "Give me my stick! Give me my stick!"
Several police officers turn to tackle the woman, in the foreground of the video, and her detention partially obscures what is happening with the man on the ground.
A voice can be heard shouting "Drop the gun!" four times before five shots ring out.
The police officers step away from the suspect lying on the ground. No one approaches the body again for one minute and thirteen seconds, by which time police reinforcements have arrived.
The man taking the video can be heard swearing as he records it. After the shooting, he can be heard saying: "Ain't nobody got no fuckin' gun. I'm gonna record this shit... They just shot that man right here, man, they just shot that fuckin' man right here, yeah." 

Skid Row is the name given to a central district of Los Angeles with a large homeless population. Estimates of the district's population range from eight thousand to eleven thousand people, predominantly black, with a homeless population of about twenty-five hundred, according to the LA Chamber of Commerce.
Described by The Associated Press as a "tenuous comfort zone for many who hit rock bottom". Homeless people tended to gravitate to the area historically as it was near a railway terminal, "the last stop on the train for the whole country", according to the Union Rescue Mission charity
Other American cities have their own "skid rows", with the term believed to have originated in Seattle, Washington.
Commander Smith said three officers, including a sergeant, had fired their guns as they struggled on the ground for control of one of the police officer's weapons. He said the department was aware of the amateur video and would attempt to amplify its sound and pictures to establish exactly what had happened. "The video is disturbing," he told reporters. "It's disturbing any time anyone loses their life. It's a tragedy." The commander added that at least one of the police officers had been wearing a body camera.
According to an ABC News report, the three officers have been placed on leave pending the outcome of an investigation into the shooting.
Steve Soboroff, president of LA's Police Commission, told the BBC it was important to investigate the facts before making any conclusions.
Witnesses told The Los Angeles Times that the man who died had been living on the street for four or five months.
Ina Murphy, who lives in an apartment nearby, said he had told her that he had recently been released after spending ten years in a mental health facility. People on Skid Row who knew him said he was not violent. "What did he do?" said Steven Tugmon to ABC News. "He wasn't an aggravated person. He wasn't mad all the time. He just had mental problems."

Rico says that police work is hard enough, but trying to deal with crazy people is impossible...