Jerusalem – An incident in which an Israeli-Ethiopian was shot to death by police on Friday is under investigation after his family claims he was wrongfully shot and the police say they were acting in self-defense.
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The incident began after the man who was shot, Yehuda Biagada, left his home in Bat Yam on Friday afternoon armed with a knife and after acting violently at home. His mother alerted the police, and they tracked him down and confronted him. The police say he charged at them with a knife and feeling their lives were in danger, shot him.
Biagada’s family says that Yehuda was not mentally stable and was experiencing difficulties since his early discharge from the IDF, and that the police did not act according to its procedures and did not fire warning shots before shooting to kill. They also leveled charges of racism against the responding officers, saying that if Yehuda had been white the police would have reacted differently.
However, an eyewitness to the incident said he felt that the shooting was justified. The man, only identified as A, told IDF Radio on Sunday that he saw an officer riding a motorcycle arriving at the scene and stopping at a crosswalk. He drew his weapon and called on Biagada to drop the knife he was brandishing. Biagada then began to charge toward officer, waving what A described as a “large kitchen knife.”
“The officer had only a split second to respond,” he said. “It seems that the officer’s life was in danger.”
Minister of Internal Security Gilad Erdan said he was waiting for the report on the investigation to decide how to act. He noted that he would personally be monitoring the probe, and highlighted efforts by the police in recent years to improve relations with the Israeli-Ethiopian community.
The relations between the police and the Israeli-Ethiopian community have been tense in recent years following several incidents in which the Israeli-Ethiopian community claimed that the police was acting out of racism.
Sounds like Newark came to israel
All police need a great deal of training on how to deal with people who are mentally disturbed.
To #2 - I agree, if the subject has been contained, and is was moving in an aggressive manner. However, if a subject starts charging with a knife, one only has a few seconds to act. There was a case in NYC years ago, where an individual armed with a knife, charged towards the cops with the knife. Even though the subject was shot numerous times, he still managed to stab one of the cops to death. It is not like it is in the movies or one television, where one shot drops a person. Some people, because they are on drugs, and don’t feel any pain, can be shot 10-12 times, and still act violently, before they die. I saw this dash cam video recently where a male and a female cop stopped a motorist who was driving recklessly. When they confronted him, he came out of his car, and started shooting, wounding one of the cops. The criminal kept yelling “kill me, kill me”. They fired and struck him numerous times, but he did not go down right away.