At least 200 people marched from the site where Dijon Kizzee was fatally shot by sheriff’s deputies to the South Los Angeles Sheriff’s Station as protests against the 29-year-old man’s death continue.
They chanted “Put down your riot gear. I don’t see no riot here,” at deputies who sealed off Imperial Highway from Figueroa Street to Normandie Avenue and watched the Saturday march.
“It is a standard protocol to protect the sheriff’s station,” Deputy Eric Ortiz told City News Service. It is something deputies “wear every day during demonstrations.”
Protesters also chanted “Peace on the sheriff,” and one carried a sight that read: “This is a revolt against racism.”
The march and rally started at 11 a.m. Saturday at 109th Street and Budlong Avenue, where Kizzee was shot on Aug. 31, and proceeded to Imperial Highway and Figueroa Street, near the sheriff’s station at 1310 W. Imperial Highway, where protesters chanted and spoke.
They then marched back to the shooting scene, where relatives of Kizzee’s relatives spoke alongside family members of
Anthony Weber, a 16-year-old boy fatally shot by deputies in the Westmont area in February 2018.
In May 2019, Los Angeles County agreed to pay Weber’s family $3.75 million to settle a lawsuit.
The shooting of Kizzee has prompted a series of protests outside the South Los Angeles Sheriff’s Station.
Four nightly protests were held from last Saturday through Tuesday, resulting in more than three dozen arrests after deputies declared them to be unlawful assemblies, due to some participants hurling objects at deputies, according to Sheriff Alex Villanueva.
Villanueva has repeatedly insisted that while some people are legitimately taking part in peaceful gatherings, the groups have been infiltrated by people from outside the Westmont area looking to instigate violence.
Cliff Smith of Roofers Local 36, one of the organizers of Saturday’s march, countered that protesters only started throwing rocks and bottles after deputies advanced on them firing chemical irritants and that his 7-year-old daughter suffered the results when some of these devices were fired near her during an earlier demonstration.
Sheriff’s officials said Kizzee was riding a bicycle in the area when deputies stopped him for an unspecified vehicle code violation. After the stop, he allegedly tried to run away and dropped a clothing item deputies said contained a firearm.
He made a motion toward the gun, sheriff’s officials said, but Kizzee’s family and community activists have accused the deputies of shooting an unarmed man multiple times in the back. They insist he was not wielding a weapon and was actually running away from the deputies when he was shot.
“We’ll have a lot of information that’ll give you the entire context of what happened, and it will answer all of the questions you might have,” Villanueva said.
On Wednesday, Kizzee’s relatives held a news conference with supporters, calling on the coroner’s office to release the findings of the autopsy. The results have been placed on a security hold by the sheriff’s department, citing the continuing investigation.
Coroner’s Investigator Kelsie Weber told City News Service the sheriff’s department does use security holds during investigations, and the coroner’s office is unable to make public autopsy information about such a case until the hold is released.