posted on 01/14/2023 2:18 am
Moment when Keenan Anderson is approached by the police (Credit: Reproduction/Twitter/@greg_price11)
Keenan Anderson, cousin of Black Lives Matter cofounder Patrisse Cullors, died in Los Angeles, California, United States after being immobilized and electrocuted by city police. The 31yearold man went into cardiac arrest about four hours after the episode and died at a local hospital. The case happened on January 3rd.
Anderson’s death came after the man was involved in a car accident. Police were called to a traffic accident in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles. Upon arriving at the scene, the victim was disoriented and said “someone is trying to kill me”, although according to information from the BBC newspaper there is no visible threat on camera.
When approached, Anderson initially follows the instructions of the police and sits down, but when other police officers arrive, he gets up and runs towards the street. The police officers shout for him to stop, but he ignores the orders and a chase ensues. The BBC newspaper had access to video images pinned to one of the police officers’ uniform.
Anderson was a father and a teacher.
moments of terror
When officers catch up with Anderson, he resists and starts screaming. According to pictures, the agents ask the young man to calm down or “I will give you an electric shock”.
An ambulance arrived five minutes after Anderson was hit with the stun gun and took him to the hospital, where hours later he went into cardiac arrest and died. “My cousin feared for his life. He’s spent the last 10 years witnessing a movement to question the killing of black people,” Patrisse Cullors, cofounder of Black Lives Matter and Anderson’s cousin, told The Guardian.
Police press conference
Last Wednesday (11/11), the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) held a press conference for the local press to discuss the case. According to Michel Morre, the company’s police chief, Anderson would have committed a crime by running over a person and fleeing the scene to “get into someone else’s car without permission.”
According to police, a drug test found marijuana and cocaine in Anderson’s blood.
Death of George Floyd
Keenan Anderson’s death is similar to the circumstances in which George Floyd died in Minneapolis, Minnesota in May 2020.
The city police had been called on suspicion that a man had bought cigarettes with a counterfeit bill. When approached by police, George Floyd resisted arrest and was eventually pinned face down to the ground while his hands were trapped.
Derek Chauvin, an agent with a 17year career in the Minneapolis Police Department, held his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes until the black man collapsed and died of asphyxiation.
A 17yearold girl captured video of the police action on her cellphone, and the footage soon went viral.
Video of Floyd’s death sparked a national outcry against racial injustice and police brutality that spread beyond US borders. Demonstrations are considered larger than the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
This was reflected in the 2020 presidential election, where Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for the White House, vice president during the administration of Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, became a popular figure in the black community.
Biden vowed to dismantle “systemic racism” if elected president. The Democrat won the November 4 election with massive support from black voters.
Joe Biden had named Kamala Harris, a black woman, as his vice president, and upon his inauguration as leader of the United States, he chose a black man to head the Pentagon, another historic decision. However, one of his dogged attempts to pass a police performance bill named after George Floyd was thwarted by Republican opposition in the Senate.
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