As members of the Los Angeles Police Commission step behind closed doors Tuesday to judge the officers who killed Ezell Ford, the panel will consider two distinct events.
One is the decision to open fire on Ford, which both Police Chief Charlie Beck and the department’s independent inspector general have found to be justified after investigators turned up evidence indicating that Ford grabbed for an officer’s holstered gun during a struggle, according to sources familiar with the LAPD’s investigation of the shooting.
The other is the officers’ actions in the moments immediately before the shooting, in which they approached the 25-year-old mentally ill black man and tried to detain him.
The inspector general, Alex Bustamante, has raised concerns about whether the officers had a legal justification to make the stop and concluded that their tactics were inappropriate, the sources said. Beck, meanwhile, has urged the commission to find that the tactics were acceptable, according to the sources.
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