Alwaght - A police officer has shot and killed a man who was
carrying a weapon in Orange County, California, authorities say.
The shooting occurred about 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, as officers
were chasing a Toyota Prius to arrest a female passenger riding the car, for
whom they had an arrest warrant, Anaheim police Lt. Eric Trapp said.
The officers managed to make a traffic stop near Lincoln Avenue
and Glassell Street in the city of Orange where one of the three passengers, a
man, got out of the car holding a weapon.
On officer shot him, Trapp said, adding the man was pronounced
dead at the scene. Police arrested the female suspect.
Police have begun an investigation using the footage filmed by
body cameras the officers were carrying at the time of the incident.
"Because it happened in the City of Orange, per county
protocol, the City of Orange is charged with investigating our officer-involved
shooting, along with the Orange County District Attorney's Office," Trapp
said.
In another incident on Thursday, an Oklahoma reserve deputy
fatally shot a man he was trying to apprehend after he confused his weapon with
a stun gun.
The sheriff's office said in a statement Saturday that Eric
Harris, who was in his 40s, was shot by the reserve sheriff's deputy,
73-year-old Robert Bates, following a foot chase.
Undercover officers had bought ammunition and a semi-automatic
pistol from Harris when arresting officers tried to arrest him in a parking
lot, according to the sheriff's office.
Harris started to run away but police caught up with him and
tried to arrest him, although he was resisting arrest.
Bates, a former police officer, was trying to help the arresting
officers take Harris into custody when he shot him to death.
"Initial reports have determined that the reserve deputy
was attempting to use less lethal force, believing he was utilizing a Taser,
when he inadvertently discharged his service weapon, firing one round which
struck Harris," it said.
Gun-related casualties have turned into a “major public health
crisis” in the US, according to a recent report by eight US medical
associations.
The US averages 87 deaths each day as a function of gun
violence, with an average of 183 injured, according to the University of
Chicago Crime Lab and the Centers for Disease Control.
