Man Shot by Los Angeles Police Used Assumed French Identity

Man Shot by Los Angeles Police Used Assumed French Identity

LOS ANGELES — Mar 3, 2015, 8:38 PM ET
By TAMI ABDOLLAH Associated Press

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A French official says a homeless ex-con who was killed by Los Angeles police had stolen the identity of a French citizen and was living under an assumed name.

Axel Cruau, the consul general for France in Los Angeles, says 39-year-old Charley Saturmin Robinet applied for a French passport in the late 1990s to come to the United States to pursue a career in acting.

When he was convicted of bank robbery in 2000, the consulate initially provided him with the support they would give any other citizen. Cruau says officials ultimately realized Robinet is not French and the real Charley Robinet is still living in France.

A law enforcement official identified Robinet as the man killed in a scuffle with police. The official wasn't authorized to speak publicly and spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

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Man killed by Los Angeles police was wanted by US marshals

By TAMI ABDOLLAH, Associated Press

Updated 7:00 pm, Tuesday, March 3, 2015

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• http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/34/77/02.../5/628x471.jpg
  Los Angeles Police detective Meghan Aguilar points at photos released by police that could indicate evidence of a suspect holding a police officer's gun, seen in a video grab scene shot by a witness at the scene of the shooting of a homeless man on Skid Row of Los Angeles, displayed at a news conference at police headquarters Monday, March 2, 2015. Chief Charlie Beck says officers fatally shot a homeless man on Skid Row after he grabbed an officer's holster during a struggle. Three Los Angeles police officers shot and killed the man on Sunday, as they wrestled with him on the ground, a confrontation captured on video that millions have viewed online. Authorities say the man was shot after grabbing for an officer's gun. Photo: Damian Dovarganes, AP

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A homeless man who was killed by Los Angeles police on Skid Row was living under an assumed name and was wanted for violating probation terms for a bank robbery conviction, French and U.S. officials said Tuesday.

A law enforcement official identified Charley Saturmin Robinet, 39, as the man police shot Sunday. The official wasn't authorized to speak publicly and talked to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

But Axel Cruau, the consul general for France in Los Angeles, said the man stole the identity of a French citizen and was living in the United States under an assumed name. He had applied for a French passport in the late 1990s to come to the United States to "pursue a career in acting."

Using the name Robinet, the man was identified as a French national in 2000 when he was convicted of robbing a Wells Fargo branch and pistol-whipping an employee in an effort to pay for acting classes at the Beverly Hills Playhouse.

That arrest spurred the consulate to provide the man with support, but as he was nearing his release from prison in 2013, officials found another Robinet in France with the same birthdate and discovered the one in the U.S. was an imposter, Cruau said.

"The real Charley Robinet is in France apparently living a totally normal life and totally unaware his identity had been stolen years and years ago," Cruau said.

While in federal prison in Rochester, Minnesota, the bank robber known as Robinet was assigned to the mental health unit, and federal officials said medical staff determined he was suffering from "a mental disease or defect" that required treatment in a psychiatric hospital, documents show.

He served roughly 13 years in prison and then spent six months in a halfway house before being released in May 2014, said Ed Ross, a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons.

Foreign nationals are typically deported after serving criminal sentences. But in this case, France would not take the man, since he wasn't really a French citizen. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that immigration authorities could not detain people indefinitely because no country is willing to take them.

So once his sentence was served, the man known as Robinet was let free.U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said she couldn't immediately comment on his immigration history.

Under the terms of the man's release, he was required to provide reports to his probation officer at the beginning of each month, Deputy U.S. Marshal Matthew Cordova said. When he failed to do so in November, December and January, a federal warrant was issued Jan. 9.

The confrontation that ended in the man's death Sunday was recorded on a bystander's cellphone and viewed millions of times online. Authorities said Robinet tried to grab a rookie officer's gun before three other officers shot him.

The violence had echoes of the August police shooting of 25-year-old Ezell Ford, whose death in a struggle with Los Angeles officers brought demonstrations in the city. Ford was unarmed and police said he was shot after reaching for an officer's gun.

The three officers who fired their weapons in the struggle were veterans of the Skid Row beat who had special training to deal with mentally ill and other people in the downtrodden area, police leaders said.

But the rookie officer who cried out that the man had his gun, leading to the shooting, had considerably less experience, and police didn't immediately say how much training he had received in dealing with mentally ill people. All officers must go through at least an 11-hour course.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said some of the veteran officers had "completed our most extensive mental illness training over a 36-hour course." Initial signs showed the officers used what they had learned during the confrontation, despite the outcome, he said.

"The way you have conversations, the way you offer options, the way that you give some space, the body language that you portray, the way that you escalate, all of that is part of the training," Beck said Monday. "I will make judgment on that when I review the totality of the investigation, but on the face of it, it appears they did try all of that."

Several dozen people rallied Tuesday in protest of the shooting and observed a moment of silence.

Though the shooting was captured on multiple videos and two officer-worn cameras, exactly what happened remains unclear.
Video showed the homeless man reaching toward the rookie officer's waistband, Beck said. The officer's gun was later found partly cocked and jammed with a round of ammunition in the chamber and another in the ejection port, indicating a struggle for the weapon, the chief said.

"You can hear the young officer who was primarily engaged in the confrontation saying that 'He has my gun. He has my gun,'" Beck said. "He says it several times, with conviction."

The three other officers then opened fire.

Beck said the officers had arrived to investigate a robbery report and the homeless man refused to obey their commands and became combative.

A security camera outside a homeless shelter about 75 feet away showed the man pushed over a neighbor's tent and the two people had a dispute. When officers arrived, the suspect turned and jumped into his tent. The man jumped out, flailing and kicking before ending up on the ground.

Beck said officers didn't know if the suspect was arming himself. Stun guns "appeared to have little effect, and he continued to violently resist," Beck said.

As the man took swings, four officers wrestled him to the ground. The struggle became blurry and distant, but shouting could be heard, followed by five apparent gunshots.

The Los Angeles Police Department's inspector general and the city's district attorney are investigating.

Two of the officers suffered minor injuries, including the rookie officer, who is on crutches. All four officers are on paid leave.

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Man killed by LAPD officers on skid row was Cameroonian national, feds say

http://www.trbimg.com/img-54f6415a/t...14/550/550x309CAPTIONSkid row shooting protestAl Seib / Los Angeles Times
Protesters march on March 3 from the skid row site where a homeless man was killed by officers on March 1 to the headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department.


By RICHARD WINTON AND KATE MATHERcontact the reporters

Feds: Homeless man killed by LAPD officers on skid row was Cameroonian national

Identity of homeless man killed by LAPD officers on skid row remains unclear


Federal immigration officials said Wednesday that the homeless man shot and killed by Los Angeles police on skid row was a Cameroonian national but provided no other details about the man's true identity.

Authorities had initially used fingerprints to identify the man as Charley Saturmin Robinet, the name he was using when he was convicted of a 2000 bank robbery in Thousand Oaks.

But French officials came forward late Tuesday and said Robinet is a law-abiding citizen who is "alive and well in France." The man killed during Sunday's altercation with LAPD officers, they said, had stolen Robinet's identity and used it to acquire a French passport to come to the U.S. in the late 1990s.

Real identity of homeless man killed by LAPD an international mystery

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The man who called himself Robinet in the U.S. was set to be deported in 2013, near the end of his 15-year prison sentence for the bank robbery, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Because of his claims of French citizenship, she said, U.S. officials contacted their counterparts in France to get the necessary travel document to deport him.

Kice said French officials initially issued the document but "then rescinded it after determining the subject was, in fact, a national of Cameroon."

After that, Kice said, ICE officials reached out to authorities in Cameroon, but they "repeatedly failed to respond to requests for a travel document."

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The man who claimed to be Charley Robinet, seen in a 2000 booking photo. (Ventura County Sheriff's Office)

Because ICE couldn't get the documents needed to deport the man, Kice said, he was released from custody in November 2013. Under a Supreme Court ruling, individuals must be released from ICE custody if they have been detained for six months and "the actual removal cannot occur within the reasonably foreseeable future," Kice said.

After the fake Robinet was released from custody, he was required to regularly report to immigration officials, Kice said.

She said he had done so, with his next check-in scheduled for Thursday.

Axel Cruau, the French consul general in Los Angeles, said the identity theft was discovered during the initial deportation process. He said his office had contacted LAPD officials Tuesday to let them know the man identified as Robinet was an impostor.

"He fooled a lot of people — including us — years go," Cruau said.

It remained unclear Wednesday what the man's true name was.

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LAPD shooting on skid row

His death drew international attention after a bystander recorded LAPD officers fatally shooting the man and posted the video on Facebook. The LAPD has said that the officers made contact with the man during their response to a 911 call but that he refused to follow their commands and instead tried to fight. At one point, police said, the man grabbed a rookie officer's holstered pistol, prompting three others to open fire.

The shooting has highlighted the difficulties police face in patrolling skid row, where many inhabitants struggle with mental illness and drug abuse. But it has also reignited anger from those living in the tent encampments and their advocates, who say police tactics are too aggressive.

Those who knew the man on skid row said he went by the name "Africa" or "Cameroon."

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