According to reports, police killed an armed man on the sand in Huntington Beach on Saturday afternoon. Although the US Open of Surfing is still underway, competition had ended for the day at the time of the shooting. TMZ obtained graphic footage of the incident that appears to show multiple officers opening fire on the man as he was lying in the sand.
“The WSL is aware of the incident that occurred near the Huntington Beach event site after competition ended for the day,” a World Surf League spokesperson said in a statement. “All athletes and staff are safe and accounted for.”
According to Jennifer Carey, a spokesperson for Huntington Beach police, the shooting took place at 3:15 p.m., just south of the pier and a few feet off the pathway. Video shows witnesses screaming from the pier.
Although details surrounding the shooting are still unclear, witnesses told the OC Register that police officers were involved in a pursuit with an adult male in a white t-shirt and jean shorts. Officials say the man was armed and failed to comply with multiple commands. That’s when police opened fire. “We started hearing pop, pop, pop,” Hector Tovar, a Chino Hills, Calif. resident, told the Register. “I thought it was fireworks, that’s how many rounds there were.”
Although the US Open was done for the day, hundreds of people were still in the area. The man was reportedly taken to a nearby hospital where he died from his injuries. Police were wearing body cameras, which will be used in the investigation into the shooting, and said they recovered the man’s gun at the scene.
Following the incident, activists in the area began calling for the officers involved to be held accountable, according to Tory Johnson, a founding member of Black Lives Matter-Huntington Beach. “This is what we’re fighting. We’re fighting police aggression, whether they are Black, brown, purple,” he said. “What we are saying is you can’t go around killing minorities, and you can’t treat people a certain way just because they look different from you, or they don’t fit the mold of an average citizen in our city.”
This report will be updated as more information becomes available.
