First it was Micheal Cho, the Korean American recent college grad that was shot and killed in La Habra for holding a tire iron. Now, it’s 21 year old Pakistani-American Mohammad Usman Chaudhry. 
On Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 4a.m. in Hollywood, CA, Mohammad Usman Chaudhry, a highly functioning autistic person, was shot multiple times and killed by the LAPD (Hollywood Division) on the 1400 block of Curson Ave. Usman was still in handcuffs when examined by the coroner. Family members of Usman were not told about his death until 21 days after the killing. [SouthAsianNetwork]
According to police, Officer Joseph Cruz and his partner were patrolling the street when they saw a dark figure by an apartment complex. The officers approached to investigate and encountered Chaudhry lying behind some bushes. As Cruz was questioning Chaudhry, he pulled out a folding knife and stabbed Cruz on the left hand. Cruz pulled out his gun and fired several rounds at Chaudhry.[LATimes]
Los Angeles non-profit South Asian Network gathered together community members last week to hold a candlelit vigil to support Usman’s family and demand an end to police violence. About 200 community members came out in support.
“The vigil for Usman Chaudhry was really powerful to attend on many different levels,” says Preeti Sharma, a local South Asian organizer. “Seeing the family speak out and share their anger at the police brutality, hearing the stories of other young men of color shot recently by LAPD, and lastly having people in the community feel empowered enough to give their testimony was altogether an emotional and empowering experience.”
There’s something just simply so wrong with how this story has played out. Not only was the kid only 21 years old, but he was autistic. I’m sure the autism contributed to awkwardness when he was approached by LAPD at 4am. And even if he stabbed the police with a folding knife, why shoot several rounds at a HANDCUFFED man? CopWatch also notes that the LAPD ran Usman’s ID before he was killed, as well. So basically, evidence shows that LAPD had him in custody when he was murdered. Many other people think this is an injustice too, and a blog memorial has been started in Usman’s memory. And his family and friends on it have questions as well and is heartbreaking to read…
1. Why was his family notified 21 days after his death when the officers had Usman in custody (in handcuffs) and had the chance to run his id? 2. Was his death not important because LAPD believed him to be homeless? Are homeless people not human beings? 3. Who do we call for help and trust when it is the police taking the lives of innocent people? [UsmanChaudhry21]
And there are even more questions on Usman’s brother’s blog here.
Here in Los Angeles, hearing stories about LAPD related killings are a dime a dozen, but hearing this story really rips my heart out because everything about it is so close to home. He’s the same age my sister. He might have been at the same Eid prayer I go to. He was shot by the same police department that is supposed to be protecting me. He isn’t the only youth to be killed by LAPD – in 2007 alone 13 “youth” were killed by LAPD. When will the brutality against our youth stop? What can we do to make the LAPD change their tragic ways?
i agree, illegal immigrants do not deserve due process, much less the right to not be shot on the whims of a cop.
There would be more outrage among the elite soy milk drinking left if an illegal immigrant was shot by a cop and killed then there would be if some illegal immigrant with big crimmal record shot and killed a cop. I just have never understood the way some on the far left think, there are just as crazy as the far right nutjobs.
I bet Michelle Malkin drinks soy milk. Desis and Asians are often lactose intolerant. Maybe she isn’t elite but just wants to limit her flatulence to her column
Sukhi, stop sounding so hateful. You make Rush Limbaugh sound like the Dali Lama.
NobleKinsman said:
You sound like you should work for the Bush administration. “The war that cost thousands of lives was a miscaluclation at best, genocide at worst. Next question!”
In all fairness to police officers, they have one of the most stressful jobs around and one of the highest suicide rates of any profession. To have to make split second decisons that can result in either their own death or the death of someone has to take heavy physical and mental toll. Joseph Wambaugh , a former police officer turned novelist wrote about it various fiction and non fiction books. Check out the movie “The New Centurions”, based on his novel of the same name. Made in the early 70s, it has a pretty harsh look at the life of beat cops in LA.
13 · louiecypher said
Not necessarily. Sometimes racism in the justice system/law enforcement is not always determined by the skin color of the offender, but many times the skin color of the victim. If the victim is a PoC, the Law usually (at least historically) is in favor of the offender, especially if the offender(s) are cops. (e.g. Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Yusef Hawkins…and in this case, Mohammad Chaudhry).
32 · Doug said
BINGO!! DING! DING! You told the raw naked truth about that. It seems that people of all races don’t have a problem with racial profiling, as long as their people aren’t the ones being profiled.
55 · Huey said
Let’s not mix up facts here. Yusef Hawkins was not killed by cops. His lynchers were given varying prison sentences. Sean Bell drunkenly slammed his car into a police van; he was only outside to retrieve a gun to possibly shoot someone inside the club. Mohammad Chaudhry’s death isn’t going to win much sympathy after he stabbed the cop (as was beaten to death in this thread) Amadou Diallo, perhaps, but then again he repeatedly ignored orders to stop and instead reached for a wallet. Who reaches for a wallet inside their jacket after several cops tell you to stop? There’s much more to these cases than the police cruising around looking for a minority to shoot.
57 · Johnny Valker said
Where is the Pre-Crime division when you need it? Save us, Tom Cruise!!!
57 · Johnny Valker said
It’s easy to be glib when you aren’t the one facing a hail of bullets from people in street clothes who pull gats and start yelling at you. It’s not that the cops are racist for profiling (something everyone does to a certain extent), but they’re not doing their job when they kill a relative innocent (while all the d-boys are free to slang away on the nearest corner)
The Map don’t lie.
it’s good to see the sheeple, “may i have another civil liberty disappeared, sir?” mentality alive and well. Scalia would be thrilled. If you want to bring Iraqi rules of engagement over here, a far easier solution would be to go over there. Summary execution for perceived breach of protocol is standard, and not only the local authorities but also private contractors can kill civilians with impunity.
59 · Nayagan said
why reach for a wallet when police officers are telling you to freeze? this was sloppy shooting and poor judgment on the cops’ part, i’ll admit, but that has nothing to do with civil liberties. America is nothing like Iraq, and the police here can’t fire a bullet without accounting for it.
57 · Johnny Valker said
Give me a break, Johnny Valker, if four or five guys in plain clothes pull out guns and NOT identify themselves as police officers are you going to wait and see if they shoot you? Hell no! You’ll want to leave. How does one retrieve a gun in his own car, when he doesn’t have one INSIDE the car? That’s BS. Sean Bell was unarmed, and was going to a bachelor party and getting married the next day. What groom carries a gun to a bachelor party? Hogwash!
Yusef Hawkins’s murderers did get varying sentences…despite the fact that two of the lynch mob were later acquitted, and a third conspirator received 300 hours of community service (for unlawfully possessing a weapon). How lenient a punishment for a felony.
And Diallo already HAD his wallet out. He dropped it and tried to pick it up. The undercover cops “thought” the wallet was a gun. And that’s how Diallo was shot multiple times. I don’t care if witnessed 30 drive-by shootings in one day. If you’re a cop and you can’t tell the difference between a wallet and a freaking GUN, then you need to find another job, because law enforcement isn’t for you.
Ok, settlement between the city and the attorney for the deceased before the end of 09. Settlement amount $650,000.
In Texas it isn’t just the cops.
Joe Horn – you are a hero. As an Australian movie says, every man’s home is his Castle and entry into it is permitted only by invitation. A couple of burglars getting shot and killed – tough luck mate. No tears here. As for cops killing people – am normally in favour of victim. It is not the job of the cop to administer justice and the street is not his fiefdom. It is his job to catch the crims. Better one dead cop than one innocent victim.
I realize that I have two very different positions but the difference is that cops are paid for with public money and hence are answerable to a higher standard.
18 · amp said
His “concerned” family was trying to locate where he was the whole time while he was outside, but since he was 18 that makes him automatically mature and an adult so the police said we had to stay off his back. They stopped him once because we filed a missing claims report, asked him a few questions and deemed it okay to let him go and not even give us a clue as to which city he might be in. LAPD already knew he was autistic because he has been in their records since we were always after to locate where he was. They said to leave him alone because he was 18. Yeah maybe physically he might be 18 but mentally not. We were always looking for him, even during Eid time once, we did our namaz and my dad and uncle went to go see where he was. He was autistic but highly functional, so he might seem okay for the most part which was why the officers who stopped him the first time thought it was fine to let him go but he wasnt fine all the way. The police let him out onto the streets and they kept him there by not telling us where he was.
Do they not usually search a person before taking them into custody (handcuffing) them, so how could he still have the knife if still in handcuffs?
ha sure they might get questioned..but its always “justified”
31 · JHFROMLH said
Snigger.
I lied. I read it in the New York Times.
I am what newspaper I read, doesn’t matter what else I read the rest of the day.
Melbourne Desi @ #64
Except, they were not in Horn’s home. They were in his neighbor’s yard. Texas law allows a person to shoot an intruder on some one else’s property. So apparently he didn’t break any laws by shooting them in the back while they were fleeing and after the 9/11 operator asked him repeatedly not to. Mr. Horn was not in any danger from the “crims.” Also, the law that allows deadly force probably is meant to protect against imminent danger and not for taking action after the situation has been defused. Mr. Horn was in no danger. He was inside his home, the perps were outside on someone else’s property and 911 had already been called. Also, the two thieves had taken flight when Horn shot them. Some are wondering if Horn would have acted the same way if he’d found a couple of neighborhood teenagers messing around instead of two “foreign” looking men. Would you be so forgiving then? Unless you argue that “unpaid citizen” vigilantes have the right to hunt and kill all unsavory characters who are “potential” threats to our (and our neighbor’s) lives and property, I see little justification in your argument.
The guy stabbed a cop! They had every right to shoot him. That he was autistic was unfortunate, but that’s the world we live in people.
Just cause the guy is ‘brown’ doesn’t excuse all the gushing and moaning here.
66 · lostone said
The county I live in charged a police officer with attempted manslaughter last year, after finding that his shooting of a civilian was unjustified. The jury was rather quick to acquit the officer, even thought there was a videotape of the entire incident. It just goes to show that there is always more to the story than what is reported in the media. Leaping to conclusions is useless.
69 · Shiv said
How do you know, that is what the police is telling everyone, there is always two sides to every story and it seems that everyone just wants to believe what the police has to say and not see if it is the truth or not.
how can someone stab someone when in handcuffs?
What happened to the Sepia Mutiny I knew and loved, which actually had intelligent comments? Has it moved to a different location, and if so, why didn’t I get the memo?
Although I am not American I got to say the LAPD just appears to me to be a very unprofessional police force. The man was handcuffed no need to kill him when he was already restrained.
If he was handcuffed and then shot that’s an abomination. But if he was shot after he shanked the cop…big deal. The moral of the story is don’t hang around a bush at night and lunge at cops with a knife.
He was not hiding behind bushes, it was stated that he was asleep behind bushes. So why bother waking him up if he is asleep and not harming anyone? Also why shoot in the chest multiple times? There are other methods to disarm people without killing them, such as shooting in the arm or leg, or even using a taser. Officer Joseph Cruz “supposedly” got a tiny cut on his hand why Usman got his life taken away. But who cares right, because it was not someone who you knew so you should not have to worry about it. Thinking like that is why the police are getting away with it again and again, like the Sean Bell case. All three officers were found innocent even though they shot at him 50 TIMES! The officer who had shot 22 times at him, said it happened so fast that he did not know what was happening. Yeah right, he didnt have time to stop and think for a second while putting more bullets into his gun to think why am I shooting this many times at a guy? There is no one to stand up and say stop killing our people, we are all human beings. We all have a right to live, stop using techniques that will kill people. Now instead of worrying about criminals and gangsters, we also have to worry about police officers killing us as well. What is this world coming to?
72 · Searching for intelligence in the South Asian world said
agreed. these are some of the worst SM comments i’ve seen. police brutality in LA, and in the U.S., exists and has been increasing esp in the last 6 months. lets not be so naive to jump out and say, “he should have been killed.” esp if he was already handcuffed, how could he have done anything with the supposed knife?
“they have the authority, to kill a minority”
–Ice Cube
The guy stabbed the cops… I mean its horrible that he died and all but I really don’t see this as a horrible case of police brutality. Big city cops like the LAPD have to deal with all kinds of hairy situations.
I also don’t get this whole south Asian unity thing. I am Indian I don’t really care all that much about Pakistani or Sri Lankan or Bangladeshi or whatever issues. Lets just be honest and deal with situation between south Asian groups in a realistic fashion. We don’t really like each other all that much and don’t mingle unless forced to.
78 · Prithviraj said
Its people like you and your bias thinking that keep people from joining together when there is trouble just because of where someone is from. Does it matter if the person is from Pakistan or India, or even that they are brown or not for people to actually care. We are all human beings, we all have red blood in us and we all have family and friends that we care about. So instead of sitting there and thinking that you shouldnt care because the person that died was not Indian, maybe you should take action so that it does not happen to someone else, it could even be someone you know.
How can you be a hundred percent sure that Usman stabbed a cop, if he was handcuffed then that is impossible. How can you not say it is not police brutality, they shot multiple times in the chest while he was HANDCUFFED. Wow you really are cold hearted for not caring or giving hoot because the person that died was Pakistani and you are an Indian, thats real backwards thinking there.
now that is a stupid law. Burglars are not comparable to fire. Your car / your family / your property – I agree with usage of any force (reasonable or not). With others, I am a bit more circumspect.
If you come at me with a knife (pocket or otherwise), I’m going to shoot you to protect myself. The rounds are going to be aimed at center mass. In fact, the third round might be a head shot. For those who think shooting someone in the leg or arm…or even shooting the knife out of the suspect’s hand is an option…turn off the television. Lethal force is used and justified in the immediate defense of life or threat of great bodily injury. Great bodily injury is well defined and would include the injury sustained to the officer and the threat of further injury possible from the knife. Center mass is used due to the large target area and the ultimate stopping ability. That is the goal: stopping the threat.
I think many of the anti police people are jumping to conclusions on this case. I don’t know where the rumor of the suspect being handcuffed came from. Perhaps it is due to him being handcuffed after the shooting. Perhaps it is something assumed and rumor begat rumor. Anyone who thinks an officer is just looking for a reason to shoot someone has never thought that philosophy through. Why place yourself in such scrutiny? Why give the media a reason to camp in front of your home? Why would someone want to be sued in federal court? Why would someone want to be bad case law? Imagine your life being turned upside down just for doing your job? And to think that the department acts to cover up an incident? Anyone working in civil service knows that such a government agency does not exist. Sure, there have been guns and other weapons planted on individuals, and those warrant further investigation and scrutiny. But, in this case, it seems cut and dry.
And who cares if the family wasn’t notified in 21 days? That isn’t the duty of the police. The LA County Coroner’s Office handles that aspect of the investigation. There is very little cooperation between the Coroner and the LAPD..so how could they collude to keep information from the family?
This case comes down to one thing. The suspect shouldn’t have done what he did. That’s it. And if the family is so curious as to why things went down the way they did, why didn’t they do somthing to prevent it?
Are there cases of police brutality? Yes. But they are not as common as people think. The problem is that everyone claims it. It is like crying wolf. When it actually happens, we tend not to differentiate it from cases like this moron. False claims of brutality take credibility away from real cases of civil rights violations.
If anyone thinks I have no experience in these matters, guess again.
81 · Arod said
stopping the threat doesnt mean killing the person.
Here is a link about Usman’s life:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25740730@N08/2676975057/in/set-72157606224428145/
81 · Arod said
how about an insulin pump?
I was friends with Usi as his friends called him and he was a very nice guy. He did not like living ion the streets and was trying to get off of them. He was on a waiting list trying to get into path people assisting the homeless. I had lived on the streets of hollywood for a while and usi helped me and always made sure I was safe. He was not a violent person and did not have violent tendencies. The police in the area knew him and were familiar with him and his problems. The lapd has a habit of harrassing homeless people. It just breaks my heart to hear that they had him in handcuffs when he was shot I truly honestly believe with all of my heart that he was woken up startled and did not realize that it was even a police officer.
A federal jury Monday found that a former Los Angeles police officer used excessive force in a fatal 2008 shooting.
The unanimous verdict in U.S. District Court against Joseph Cruz and the city of Los Angeles was essentially a rejection of Cruz’s account of the shooting.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd-verdict-20110124,0,4233346.story