California police violence stirs protests

Protesters in the United States have clashed with the police in Orange County, California, over the controversial fatal shooting of an unarmed Latino man by a police officer, Press TV reports. Chanting "no justice, no peace" and "cops, pigs, murderers," the crowd swarmed the Anaheim Police headquarters after an Anaheim police officer killed 24-year-old Manuel Diaz on Saturday afternoon. The killing sparked violent protests and outrage in the neighborhood. Also on Saturday, protesters gathered near the shooting scene and set fire to a trash bin and threw rocks and bottles at officers who were securing the scene for investigators to collect evidence. The police used pepper balls and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. Videos of the scene showed the police unleashing a K-9 dog into the crowd. The dog charged several people, including a woman and a child in a stroller, before biting a man in the arm. Five people have been arrested in Anaheim during two days of protests, the latest in a series of actions by families of shooting victims, some of whom have been holding weekly protests for nearly two years at police headquarters in Orange County. According to Anaheim Police Chief John Welter, the Saturday shooting occurred after two officers spotted three men acting suspiciously in a neighborhood in northeastern Anaheim. One of the officers chased Diaz and shot him. Diaz later died in the hospital. Welter said two officers were placed on paid leave, but did not say what had prompted the officer to open fire. “He was shot first in the back, but he was down," Diaz’s mother, Genevieve Huizar, said, adding that “then they shot him a second time. They shot him in the head.” Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait has called for an independent investigation into the shooting and has asked the Attorney General’s Office in California to get involved in the case. "Transparency is essential,” Tait said, noting, “The investigation will seek the truth. And whatever the truth is, we will own it.” Late on Sunday, in another incident several miles away from the scene of the Saturday afternoon shooting, an officer shot and killed a man the police said was shooting at them.