Homeless man shot dead by LAPD was not deported due to stolen identity

The true identity of the man who was shot and killed by Los Angeles police officers on Skid Row in downtown LA remains a mystery, even after federal immigration officials said on Wednesday that he was a Cameroonian national whom they were unable to deport because he lacked the proper documentation.

News outlets cited anonymous law enforcement officials on Tuesday in identifying the 39-year-old man as Charley Saturmin Robinet, who was described as a French national who had served 15 years in a US federal prison for bank robbery. But French consular officials denied the report, saying the “real Charley Robinet” was living a “totally normal life” in France and was “totally unaware his identity had been stolen years and years ago”.

The man who was killed by LAPD on Sunday assumed Robinet’s identity years ago, when he helped rob a Wells Fargo bank in Thousand Oaks, 40 miles outside of downtown LA, in 2000. He reportedly used Robinet’s identity to acquire a French passport to come to the US in the late 1990s.

The man was set to be deported in April 2013 while serving a federal prison sentence for armed robbery, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice).

Based on his claim of French citizenship, immigration officials at the time reached out to the French consular for the appropriate travel documents to deport him. French officials initially issued the document, then rescinded it based on a determination that he was not French, but rather from Cameroon.

Ice then reached out to officials in Cameroon, “but Cameroonian authorities repeatedly failed to respond to requests for a travel document”. Without the document, Ice was unable to carry out the removal, and the man was released from their custody in November 2013, Kice said. (Under a US supreme court decision, Ice must release detainees after six months if the “actual removal cannot occur within the reasonably foreseeable future”.)

Since the man’s release, he regularly reported to the agency, as required by his supervision order. He was next scheduled to report on Thursday.

By Wednesday, the man’s real name was still unknown. Ed Winter, a spokesman for the Los Angeles county coroner’s department, said officials are “still attempting to positively identify him and notify next of kin”. Winter said until then, the department will not release any new information.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, LAPD officers arrested a man on Skid Row after an altercation broke out and a Taser was deployed to detain him.

Police were responding to a call by a member of a local news team filming in the area who reported that the man had attempted to grab the camera twice, the LA Times reported. A spokeswoman for the LAPD told the Times that an altercation ensued while they tried to arrest the man. Three officers were reportedly injured in the scuffle: one was bitten, another hurt an elbow and the third had a cut on the forehead. She said the man attempted to grab a sergeant’s holster, but the officers were able to subdue him without firing a weapon.

The arrest happened just days after the fatal incident occurred at Skid Row, an enclave used by homeless people to pitch tents. The dramatic confrontation was caught on video by onlookers; it was also captured by nearby surveillance cameras and body cameras worn by at least two police officers.

In one video that was shared widely online, six LAPD officers are seen scuffling with a man, known on the street as “Africa”, on a sidewalk on Sunday afternoon. Officers struggle with the man as he writhes on the ground, before shooting him several times.

Police were responding to an emergency call reporting a robbery. Surveillance footage shows that the dead man, who had been sleeping in an orange tent on Skid Row for only a few months, had toppled another man’s tent. An ambulance arrived to treat the man pushed in the street before police officers arrived on the scene.

The LAPD has defended the officers’ actions, saying they opened fire after the man reached for one of the officer’s pistol. An investigation is under way.