The father of a 16-year-old teenager who was shot and killed Sunday by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy stood in front of a packed church seeking answers.
“Where’s the gun? Where’s the gun?” John Weber asked sheriff’s officials as the crowd backed him up with chants and shouts. Sitting at a table with department officials Wednesday evening were members of the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission, their faces grim. “I know where the bullets are — they’re right in my baby’s back,” Weber yelled.
The death of another young black man accused of possessing a weapon was a cruel blow in this South Los Angeles neighborhood that bears a disproportionate burden of violent crime, and it comes at a time when such encounters are under intense scrutiny nationwide.
Wednesday’s emergency meeting, called in the wake of the shooting of Anthony Weber in Westmont, was intended to quell the inevitable anger among residents who already have a fractured relationship with law enforcement. But there was little dialogue, and it only seemed to inflame tensions that have long simmered and were stoked when, in the aftermath of the shooting, officials accused neighbors of taking a gun allegedly carried by the dead teenager.
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