SEATTLE, Feb 26: Police officers who fatally shot a Mexican farm worker in Washington state after he pelted them with rocks fired 17 shots, striking him five or six times, police said, an incident captured on video that has fueled protests.
Antonio Zambrano-Montes, 35, an unemployed orchard worker from Mexico’s Michoacan state, was killed earlier this month in Pasco, a city of some 68,000 residents in Washington state’s agricultural heartland, after he threw rocks at officers and tried to flee.
His death sparked protests by demonstrators who accused Pasco police of overly aggressive tactics in dealing with the Hispanic community and who likened the shooting to two high-profile police killings of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and in New York City. Police said yesterday, Zambrano-Montes pelted officers with rocks and ignored commands to surrender before the shooting, and that a stun gun failed to subdue him. The three officers involved in the incident, including one who is Hispanic, were placed on administrative leave pending an internal probe.
Kennewick Police Sergeant Ken Lattin, a spokesman for a special unit investigating the case, told reporters yesterday that all three of the officers involved in the incident fired their weapons.
‘There was a rock found next to his body,’ Lattin said of the slain farm worker, though Zambrano-Montes was not armed with a knife or gun.
(AGENCIES)
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