Vol. 72/No. 22      June 2, 2008

Byoune, 19, was killed early on the morning of May 11 when two cops shot up the vehicle in which he was riding. The driver, Larry White, also 19, was shot in the leg and is still hospitalized. Chris Larkin, 21, was grazed by the bullets. All three youths are Black.

The cops said they were investigating shots fired in the area, saw Larkin run to a car, and claimed the car began driving toward them. They said they heard more shots and immediately opened fire on the car, at first even shooting through their own windshield. The cops then got out of their car and continued firing.

Relatives said the men had gone out for hamburgers, heard some shots, and were trying to leave when the cops attacked them.

Inglewood police chief Jacqueline Seabrooks called the events “tragic,” but said, “I won’t go so far as to call it a mistake.” But according to the Los Angeles Times Seabrooks said there was no indication that the cops fired warning shots or that they saw any weapons. The cops are currently on paid leave.

“What they did was wrong,” said White in a message read at the vigil by his brother. “They changed my life and took my best friend.”

“They killed him for no reason,” said Eboni Childs, another friend of Byoune. “The officers that killed him need to be arrested, like anyone else.”

James Harris, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Congress in the 35th C.D., took part in the vigil. “We should demand the prosecution and jailing of the cops who killed Michael Byoune,” he said.  
 
 
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