US police shoot dead unarmed Ugandan refugee

Police in the El Cajon suburb of San Diego have released a surveillance video from a local business that shows an unarmed Ugandan refugee being shot dead in a car park on Tuesday.<br /><br /> As two police officers close in on Alfred Olango his sister Lisa Peterson, who is standing nearby, shouts: “Officer don’t shoot him!” One officer then fires at least four times whilst the other fires an electronic stun gun as Peterson screams.<br /><br /> A police statement said Olango refused to remove one of his hands from a trouser pocket and then pointed what they believed was a gun at them. It was in fact a vaporiser, an electronic cigarette.<br /><br /> Three nights of protests, sometimes violent, have rocked the city and police hope that releasing the video may ease tensions.<br /><br /> “Our only concern at this point, was community safety. We felt that the aggression of some – some of the protesters was escalating to the point where it was necessary to release some information,” Jeff Davis, El Cajon’s police chief, told a news conference on Friday.<br /><br /> Olango’s sister said she rang the police before the shooting, warning them that her brother was “mentally perturbed” and needed help.<br /><br /> After the shooting Olango’s mother, Pamela Benge said she could not believe her family fled war-torn northern Uganda only to be shot dead by police in the United States.<br /><br /> Multiple killings of black people by armed police have sparked protests in cities across the US in recent months.<br /><br /> Where all 2015 police killings were BLK. #BlackLivesMattersamswey/#MappingPoliceViolencehttps://t.co/BbwCi6LfnZ pic.twitter.com/k1jnEB5w3I— Jason Patterson (jason_patterson) January 2, 2016<br /><br /> The Black Lives Matter protest group claims that 216 black people have been killed this year.<br />