Image Credit: CREDIT - Instagram: @osopepatrisse​

Los Angeles, January 12 (RHC)-- In the U.S. state of California, community advocates are demanding justice for Keenan Anderson, a 31-year-old Black father and high school English teacher, who was killed by Los Angeles police on January 3rd. 

Officers were called to the scene after a car accident was reported.  As police attempted to arrest Anderson, he was tased for several minutes, tackled and pushed down on the pavement, handcuffed and restrained at the ankles.  Anderson was then taken to the hospital, where he died of cardiac arrest. 

The LAPD did not acknowledge Anderson’s death until three days later.  Patrisse Cullors, author and co-founder of Black Lives Matter, said on Instagram that Anderson was her cousin.  She wrote Monday: “Keenan deserves to be alive right now, his child deserves to be raised by his father.”

LAPD officers have killed at least three people so far in the first few days of 2023.  Data by the group Mapping Police Violence shows 2022 was the deadliest year on record for police violence as law enforcement killed at least 1,176 people across the U.S.