Authorities say the fatal police shooting of a 46-year-old man nicknamed "Uncle Su'e" in North Long Beach was necessary to subdue a violent suspect who was brawling with an officer and had grabbed his baton.
But neighbors and relatives described it as an unwarranted assault on a shirtless, unarmed man as he lay face down on a sidewalk.
On this both sides agree: Many in the largely Samoan enclave are deeply angry over the death of Roketi Su'e on Saturday.
Police said a hostile crowd of about 40 people surrounded the two officers involved, yelling and threatening them, and that the officers called for backup, concerned that the crowd would turn on them.
The crowd dispersed but tensions in the neighborhood remained inflamed on Sunday.
"He had no shirt on. He didn't have a weapon. He never carried a weapon," said Su'e's niece, Lagilelei Saolotoga, 36, who did not see the shooting but ran down the sidewalk to her uncle's side as soon as she heard shots fired.
A relative described Su'e as terminally ill with cancer. He suffered from schizophrenia, but the relative and others described him as harmless and childlike.
He would dance with neighborhood children and give them money when the ice cream truck came by, they said.
He had been returning home Saturday evening from a neighborhood birthday party when the confrontation occurred.
Long Beach police spokeswoman Nancy Pratt said police were summoned to the neighborhood about 7 p.m. Saturday by callers who said a man was behaving erratically. The confrontation occurred in the 3400 block of 67th Street, a cul-de-sac of modest homes and apartments just southwest of the Downey Avenue exit of the Riverside Freeway
Pratt said Su'e charged the officers, who tried to protect themselves by hitting him with their batons and shooting him with a Taser gun, which proved ineffective.
Su'e grabbed one of the officer's batons, she said, and as the two struggled, Su'e punched the officer in the face and both fell to the ground. The other officer, "fearing for his partner's safety as well as his own," fired at Su'e, Pratt said.
"They thought he was under the influence of drugs and or alcohol," said Pratt, who added that the incident still was under investigation.
Witnesses say Su'e never fought the officers. They say the police emerged from their car with batons drawn, struck his leg, then Tasered him until he was lying on his stomach. One officer shot him in the back five or six times, they said.
