Just days after the tragic events of last Saturday in which a local 47-year-old man lost his life, differing accounts of what actually happened are still being told by witnesses and the Long Beach Police Department.  Tensions started to boil over Tuesday as several members of the community spoke of similar, possibly related wrongful abuse, and the fatally wounded man’s family announced plans to sue the LBPD in a wrongful death suit.

Roteki Su’e was approached by police officers on Saturday after a neighbor called 9-1-1 to alert the police that Su’e was acting strangely and making threats.  A woman on the line refers to Su’e as being out of his mind.  Police arrived and say that a physical altercation occurred as they approached Su’e, and they used their batons to subdue him.  When the tactic did not work – including the use of a taser – one officer feared for his safety and that of his partner, drawing and firing his weapon, fatally wounding Su’e in the torso, according to a recent LBPD statement.  

LBPD Deputy Chief William Blair announced in a conference yesterday that Su’e had grabbed a police baton away from an officer, but witnesses maintain that the man was unarmed, and was lying face-down on the ground when he was shot.

A large gathering of flowers, candles and cards has amassed near the site of the incident on 67th Street as friends and neighbors have come to pay their respects.  The LBPD will conduct a full internal investigation into the incident, in addition to an independent investigation run by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

Deputy Chief William Blair delivers a statement and fields questions from the press.

In the wake of other accusations of police hostility around the nation, all eyes are on the LBPD.

Patricia Mathis, renowned sociologist and commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson and Eddie Jones. Mathis claims her son and his girlfriend were beaten and arrested on the night of the incident, and remain in jail.  Eddie Jones is President of the Los Angeles Civil Rights Association.

Cranston Howard claims to have been beaten and jailed on the same night, and shows the injury he says was delivered at the hands of the police.

Unidentified woman signs the memorial placard as a boy plays with a balloon that was left with flowers.