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N.Orleans police probed in shooting death

Posted on: Tuesday, 27 December 2005, 18:31 CST

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - New Orleans police are investigating the death of a man who was shot by police officers as he wielded a knife during a incident on Monday partly caught on videotape.

Police spokesman Juan Quinton said on Tuesday the "investigation is ongoing" into the killing of the 38-year-old man who could be seen on the videotape waving a small knife and acting erratically while surrounded by at least a dozen policemen with their guns aimed at him.

The city's police force has come under scrutiny since Hurricane Katrina struck on August 29 and widespread looting broke out in the devastated city after several hundred officers failed to report for duty.

The videotape of the Monday incident, taken by a person in a nearby apartment and aired later on television, showed gun-wielding police following the man as he slowly backed away.

Police said he jumped at them with the knife and they killed him, but the videotape did not show that part of the incident.

Quinton said police confronted the man, whose name has not been released, after he struck an employee at a Walgreen's drugstore, then walked out on to St. Charles Avenue in the city's leafy Uptown section.

"At that point he became very combative," Quinton said. Officers used pepper spray to try to disable the man, but it had no effect, he said.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune quoted people in the neighborhood as saying the man was a familiar figure in the area and that some believed he was mentally ill but not violent.

Quinton said it was not known how many officers fired their weapons, but that those involved would be placed on temporary leave until the case was resolved.

New Orleans Police Chief Warren Riley was scheduled to hold a news conference on the shooting on Wednesday, he said.

Last week, two policemen were fired for beating up a 64-year-old man outside a French Quarter nightclub in October in an incident videotaped by a television news crew.

At least 40 officers are under investigation after being accused of taking cars from a downtown New Orleans Cadillac dealership in the days following the storm.

Source: REUTERS

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