Residents of downtown Los Angeles and community activists met with police department officials yesterday over the officer involved shooting death of a homeless man last month. The Los Angeles Community Action Network and others say police didn’t have to kill 51 year-old Dale Garrett, who was selling drugs to an undercover officer in broad daylight when the shooting occurred. Many in the community say the bigger issue is the department’s Safer Cities Initiative - launched in September 2006 - which added 100 officers in a square mile area known as Skid Row in downtown L.A.
Activists say the Initiative has led to the criminalization of homeless transients in order to support multi-billion dollar downtown development.
Pacifica’s Ernesto Arce files this report from Los Angeles.