EL CAJON, Calif. -- Dozens of demonstrators on Wednesday protested the killing of a black man shot by an officer after, authorities said, the man pulled an object from a pocket, pointed it and assumed a "shooting stance."
Protesters who gathered outside the suburban San Diego police station in El Cajon chanted "no killer cops" and "black lives matter." Demonstrators who said they knew the man killed Tuesday identified him as Alfred Olango, an immigrant from Uganda.
Agnes Hassan, originally from Sudan, described Olango as well-educated but mentally ill. She said she spent time in a refugee camp with Olango and that they both suffered getting to the United States.
The man, described as about 30 years old, died after one El Cajon officer fired an electronic stun gun and another officer simultaneously fired his firearm several times, El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis told reporters at a news conference late Tuesday night. Davis did not describe the object the man pulled out of his pocket but acknowledged it was not a weapon.
[Read about recent fatal shootings by policeacross the country.]
Police spokesman Lt. Rob Ransweiler said Wednesday that the man was killed one minute after police arrived at the scene to investigate a report of mentally unstable person walking "erratically" in and out of traffic.
The two officers arrived at the scene at 2:10 p.m. Tuesday and the shooting happened at 2:11 p.m., Ransweiler said.
Ransweiler declined to confirm the victim's name but said he was in his 30s and believed to from Uganda.
Some protesters said Tuesday night that Olango was shot while his hands were raised in the air. Police disputed that and produced a frame from a cellphone video taken by a witness that appeared to show the man in the "shooting stance" as two officers approached with weapons drawn.
Candles and flowers were left Wednesday at the shooting scene, near bloodstains on the pavement.
Olango often hung around the strip mall and frequently seemed "agitated but he was never aggressive toward me," said Victor Hauer, who works at a nearby convenience store and sometimes bought the man food or gave him a few dollars.
Davis urged the community to remain calm and said the investigation will be thorough.
Police said they were called to the mall by the victim's sister, who said he was "not acting like himself" and walking in traffic. The man refused "multiple" orders to take his hand from his pocket, then was shot after pulling out the object that authorities declined to describe, police said.
When detectives arrived, police say a woman came forward and voluntarily provided cellphone video of the shooting. Authorities released the single frame from it but not the whole video. El Cajon officers do not wear body cameras.
Other videos quickly surfaced showing the aftermath. In one posted to Facebook, an unidentified woman is heard telling police at the scene that the man was ordered to take his hand out of his pocket.
"I said: 'Take your hand out your pocket, baby, or they're going to shoot you.' He said 'no, no, no,'" the woman said. "When he lifted his hand out ... he did have something in his hand but it wasn't no gun, and that's when they shot him."
Another woman on the video wearing hospital-style work clothing identified herself as the victim's sister. She shrieked and cried, telling officers that she had called them to help her brother, whom she described as mentally ill.
"I just called for help, and you came and killed him," she said.
Officers provided aid until paramedics arrived and took the man to a hospital.
Michael Ray Rodriguez was among witnesses who said the man had his hands in the air. He said he was driving from his apartment complex past the shooting scene and saw a shirtless black man with his hands raised.
The officer "let go of the trigger and shot him again and again," Rodriguez told The San Diego Union-Tribune.
On Twitter, the department disputed some of the claims made by protesters: "The investigation just started, but based on the video voluntarily provided by a witness, the subject did NOT have his hands up in the air."
El Cajon is about 15 miles northeast of San Diego and has a population of about 100,000.
It is 69 percent white and 6 percent black, according to 2010 census figures, and has become home for many people fleeing Iraq and, more recently, Syria.
Information for this article was contributed Julie Watson and Andrew Dalton of The Associated Press and by David Hernandez and Richard Winton of the Los Angeles Times.
A Section on 09/29/2016