A black man who died after a physical struggle with police in a southern California home made an emergency call to Pasadena police because he needed help and suffered from bipolar disorder, his partner told a Los Angeles TV station.
His death comes as police in the San Diego area released a videotape of a fatal shooting by officers of another black man, 38-year-old Alfred Olango, who died in El Cajon on Tuesday as he grappled with what his mother said was a mental breakdown.
Friday’s incident in Pasadena, and Olango’s death after his sister called 911 seeking help, highlight the risks of a system that relies on police officers to respond to mental health crises.
The slayings were the latest in a string of deaths of black men caused by police officers in the United States that have led to protests over racial bias in the American criminal justice system.
Local broadcaster KTLA reported that Shainie Lindsay, who identified herself as the man’s partner and said she witnessed the incident, said he was bipolar.
“He called the police on himself. He wanted help,” Lindsay told the TV station.
Pasadena Police officers came to the home regarding a “domestic disturbance” early on Friday morning, the department said in a statement. Police said officers encountered the man, whom they have not identified, and said he refused orders to drop a knife he was holding.
After a stun gun failed to subdue him, a fight ensued, Pasadena police said. No shots were fired.
Officers saw he had stopped breathing as they were restraining him and switched to a life-saving CPR procedure, the department said. The man died at the scene.
Lindsay said after he was shot with a stun gun, the man tried to move to a bedroom that he locked behind him. The officers pried their way into the room and wrestled with him, kicking his head and hitting him with a baton, she told KTLA.
“Then, after that, they was doing CPR and then he was dead,” Linsday told KTLA.
A representative for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Guillermina Saldana, said homicide detectives were involved in the investigation.
Authorities on Friday released videos of police shooting an unarmed black man dead in El Cajon, California, but the grainy images, much of them without sound, were not likely to immediately pacify community outrage over the incident.
Police and prosecutors said an investigation was still ongoing into the fatal shooting on Tuesday of Ugandan-born Alfred Olango, 38, and that no decision had been made on whether to file charges against the officers involved.
“This is as difficult a situation as any law enforcement officer will ever encounter and its one we never seek,” El Cajon police chief Jeff Davis said at a news conference. “That being the case, a tragic event took place that took a life and had a major impact on our community.”Videotape of the incident comes from two sources: A camera mounted at the drive-thru window of the Los Ponchos taco near where the shooting took place and the cell phone of a bystander.
Both tapes show the two officers confronting Olango in the parking lot of the restaurant before opening fire, one with a gun and the other with a Taser. In the bystander’s tape, a woman can be shouting: “Officer don’t shoot him!” before at least four shots ring out and she screams.
Olango’s actions in the moments before he is shot are difficult to make out, in part because he is obscured at times by an officer.
Family members and activists have called for several days for police to release the video, believing it would show that officers acted improperly.
The tragedy has gained attention in Africa, where officials from several countries criticized Olango’s death and the succession of police killings of black men in the United States.
The shooting has also led to protests in El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego, where on Thursday night police used pepper spray to disperse the crowd and arrested two men for unlawful assembly.
Attorneys for Olango’s family had criticised authorities for previously releasing a still photograph of Olango pointing an object at an officer, saying it gave an unfair impression of the former Ugandan refugee, and called for the public release of the video.
El Cajon officer Richard Gonsalves and Josh McDaniel, both 21-year veterans, were responding to emergency calls about a “mentally unstable” man walking in traffic, officials said.
Police have said Olango ignored commands to take his hand out of his pocket before pulling out an object later determined to be a vaping device used to inhale nicotine. Olango assumed a “shooting stance” and pointed the object, which had a 3-inch-long (8-cm) cylinder, police said. No gun was found.
Gonsalves opened fire and McDaniel discharged a Taser device, police said. Police have not said how many shots were fired. A family spokesman said Olango was shot five times

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