Police officers in El Cajon, California, admitted on Wednesday that Alfred Olango — a mentally ill black men who was fatally shot by cops on Tuesday — was holding a vape in his hands, not a gun.
According to Police Chief Jeff Davis, Olango was shot by an officer after he suddenly withdrew an object from his pocket. On Tuesday, in an attempt to to dispel “disinformation” about what transpired, the El Cajon Police Department released a still shot of Olango pointing that object at the officers at the scene. But on Wednesday night, authorities reported that the object in question was merely a vaping device.
Olango was in psychological distress when he was killed Tuesday at a shopping center. Prior to the shooting, his sister called 911 for officers to help him. But instead of offering assistance and de-escalating the situation with the help of San Diego’s Psychiatric Emergency Response Team (PERT), officers tased and shot him.
Olango is Ugandan, according to local reports, but has lived in the U.S. for decades after fleeing persecution there. Members of the Acholi tribe, the Olangos came to the country as refugees in 1991. Family members said he worked as a cook and hoped to open a restaurant one day. Law enforcement records indicate he had a history of drug and theft charges, but local police say the officers who tased and shot Olango had no knowledge of that background on Tuesday.
Protesters in El Cajon took to the streets on Wednesday night to protest Olango’s killing. Crowds of “several hundred” marched against traffic a few blocks south of the interstate that feeds traffic west into San Diego. Police lined the impromptu route and sought to keep protesters from moving onto busier roads.
Mayor Bill Wells said demonstrators are “loud and angry, but they’ve been peaceful.” El Cajon is a relatively small, relatively poor suburb of San Diego, with about 100,000 residents and a median income roughly $20,000 lower than the statewide figure for California. Like outlying communities around other California cities, the area has started to become a distant refuge from skyrocketing rent in San Diego proper in recent years.
As was the case in Charlotte, North Carolina, following the death of Keith Lamont Scott, protesters in El Cajon are demanding that police publicize witnesses’ videos of Olango’s shooting. They’re also asking for the federal government to step in and investigate the shooting.
“We don’t want to see a still picture of him pointing something that is not gun,” Bishop Cornelius Bowser told CNN. “The best way to move forward right now is through transparency.”
Davis says the investigation prevents him from releasing any videos. “This (video) is considered evidence, and until it is deemed otherwise, it will be under the control of the district attorney’s office,” he said Tuesday.
Alan Pyke contributed to this report.