Identity of Homeless Man Shot by Cops Revealed

He was Charly Keundeu Keunang, from Cameroon
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Mar 6, 2015 10:26 AM CST
Identity of Homeless Man Shot by Cops Revealed
Protestors rally in downtown Los Angeles, against a police shooting of a homeless man on Tuesday, March 3, 2015.   (Nick Ut)

A homeless man shot to death by police during an LA Skid Row confrontation over the weekend was identified yesterday under his true name—not the stolen identity he had used for years. Charly Keundeu Keunang, 43, was listed as being indigent and homeless, and he died from multiple gunshot wounds, according to the LA County coroner's office. The AP traces Keunang's path to Skid Row, which it frames as marked by mistakes and miscommunication by three governments on three continents over nearly 20 years. The problems began in the late 1990s when French officials gave him a passport under what turned out to be a stolen name—Charley Saturin (some sources say Saturmin) Robinet.

He came to the US, robbed a bank, and then was convicted and imprisoned under the same false name. In 2013, as he was nearing his release from a federal prison, French officials found the real Robinet in France. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement then determined the impostor actually was from Cameroon, but the country allegedly ignored repeated requests for travel documents, hampering efforts to deport him. He was released from a halfway house last May, and US probation officials lost track of him in November. He apparently was living the entire time on Skid Row. LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith says the man had no previous arrests in LA. Police also said Wednesday that none of the four officers involved in the shooting had fired their weapons while on duty before. Their names are being withheld until it's determined there's no credible threat to their safety, Smith says. (More Los Angeles stories.)

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