LOS ANGELES -- A homeless man who was killed by Los Angeles police on Skid Row was living under an assumed name and was wanted for violating probation terms for a bank robbery conviction, French and U.S. officials said Tuesday.
An official identified Charley Saturmin Robinet, 39, as the man police shot Sunday.
But Axel Cruau, the consul general for France in Los Angeles, said the man stole the identity of a French citizen and was living in the United States.
Using the name Robinet, the man was identified as French in 2000 when he was convicted of robbing a Wells Fargo branch.
That arrest spurred the Consulate to provide the man with support, but as he was nearing his release from prison in 2013, officials found another Robinet in France with the same birth date and discovered the one in the U.S. was an imposter, Cruau said.
The confrontation that ended in the man's death Sunday was recorded on a bystander's cellphone. Authorities said Robinet tried to grab a rookie officer's gun before three other officers shot him.
A Section on 03/04/2015