Kendrec McDade Wasn't the First: 6 More Controversial Police Shootings of Unarmed L.A. Black Men
As the investigation continues into 19-year-old Kendrec McDade's death by police gunfire on March 24, the scenario is looking worse and worse for the two Pasadena police officers who shot McDade.
Kendrec McDade, 19, was killed by Pasadena police on March 24.
Last Saturday, at a tense community meeting near the crime scene, Pasadena Police Chief Philip Sanchez urged the public to "wait for the judicial process to find out what ultimately occurred."
But that will take months. Impatience was in the air...
... in New Revelation Baptist Church, as McDade's friends and neighbors grilled the chief with questions like, "Why didn't the officers have their sirens on?" and "Must the police shoot to kill?"
As usual, many details of the shooting are being kept under wraps until the official investigation comes to an end. But the undisputed facts are that McDade was not armed (though a 911 caller lied that he was) and did not threaten the officers with violence.
Police critics at the church muttered insults throughout Sanchez' dodgy explanation of what happened to McDade, saying racism was at the core of the shooting.
Aside from the obvious parallel to Trayvon Martin -- the black kid shot to death by a neighborhood watchman in Florida just days before McDade -- here are six more controversial police killings of black men throughout L.A. County in the last few years.
6. Leroy Barnes
In another controversial shooting for the Pasadena Police Department, cops killed 38-year-old Barnes in February 2009. During a routine traffic stop, they fired multiple rounds at the father of two, who lived only one block away, as he exited his vehicle. They originally claimed the victim had been armed -- but no gun was ever recovered from the scene.
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