Thirty-five-year-old Deng
Manyoun didn’t speak English—but he did swing at a Kentucky patrolman with a
7-foot pole, with its ‘Open’ flag attached. He paid with his life.
He swung a flagpole at a Kentucky cop, and it cost him
his life.
Deng Manyoun, a 35-year-old African immigrant who didn’t speak English, was fatally
shot by a Louisville police officer Saturday after he charged at the patrolman
with a 7-foot pole.
In surveillance footage released by WHAS-TV, Manyoun is
seen outside a smoke shop as Officer Nathan Blanford pulls up in a squad car.
The two begin arguing, and the man walks away and returns with a pole, which has
a business’s red-white-and-blue “open” flag attached to it.
Manyoun—suspected of assaulting a woman moments
before—charges at Blanford and wildly swings at him with the pole, which is
made of two pieces and breaks in half.
Within seconds, Blanford makes the fatal decision to
shoot. He fires twice at the crazed man, who falls backward, out of view of the
security camera. Manyoun was rushed to the hospital and later died.
The 40-year-old officer is on administrative leave
pending an investigation by the Louisville Metro Police Department.
On Sunday, Louisville activists denounced what they called a national trend of police using excessive force
against people of color. They questioned why Blanford didn’t first
try to subdue Manyoun with a Taser, mace, or baton.
Manyoun didn’t speak English, according to neighbors and
the police chief.
“Either you comply or you die,” activist Tara Pruitt said
at a meeting covered by the Courier-Journal.
“De-escalation tactics are not used when it comes to people of color.”
Another advocate, Chanelle Helm, said Blanford’s response
might have been warranted if Manyoun was “a criminal with a gun.”
“You’re telling me you can’t defeat a person with a
flagpole who seems to be intoxicated?” Helm said. “An officer is supposed to be
trained to protect people. He lost all type of control.”
During a press conference, Louisville Police Chief Steve
Conrad played a video of the incident and said Blanford tried to create a space
between himself and the suspect, who was swinging the pole “in a sledge
hammer-like motion.”
“You’re telling me you
can’t defeat a person with a flagpole who seems to be intoxicated?”
“Quite frankly, when you’ve got somebody coming at you
with a dangerous instrument of that type…I don’t know…that the officer had the
opportunity to transition to a less lethal option,” Conrad said.
Authorities haven’t yet interviewed Blanford to get his
side of the story. The officer was not taken to a hospital and does not appear
to have been injured.
Conrad would not identify Manyoun as the suspect or discuss his
criminal history, despite Louisville’s coroner and multiple media outlets
identifying him.
Manyoun appeared to have a lengthy rap sheet, including a
June 2 arrest for disorderly conduct, according to WHAS-TV.
Using the spelling Manyuon instead of Manyoun, a search
of the man’s name brings up a mugshot for the June 2 arrest, along with others for resisting arrest,
menacing, and indecent exposure.
Court records also show a man named Deng Wol Manyuon—also
spelled Deng Manyoun in news articles—was charged with assaulting a federal courtroom
security officer.
That arrest came in August 2013, when Manyoun was at a
citizenship and immigration office inside a federal courthouse in Louisville.
As an employee at a service window was assisting him, he reached under the
protective glass and knocked over her computer monitor and other items,
according to one deputy U.S. Marshals arrest affidavit.
Manyoun then tried to chuck a trash can at a court
security officer and punched him in the face, the document states.
Court documents reveal that Manyoun required an
interpreter to speak Dinka, the language of a pastoral ethnic group in South Sudan.
He eventually pleaded guilty in July 2014, after requesting a psychological
examination, which is sealed.
After stints in federal immigration custody and scraps in
Louisville, Manyoun would meet his demise over a flagpole.
The day Manyoun was killed, police were responding to a
call about a woman who was punched by a stranger as she used her cellphone.
Manyoun matched the description of the suspect: a black man in his 30s, wearing
a white T-shirt and gray pants.
It’s unclear whether Officer Blanford—who has been on the
force since 2005—pulled over because Manyoun looked like the attacker or
because the man was stumbling into traffic.
Manyoun was almost struck by a car before Blanford
spotted him. The cop “was dealing with someone who had essentially jaywalked”
before the scene turned violent, Conrad said.
An unnamed witness, however, painted a different picture
of the scene.
“I was at the light and the cop was telling the guy to do
something and the man had took a couple steps back,” the witness told WLKY. “The cop pulled out his weapon and shot to kill
him.”
Still, as police investigate whether Blanford’s use of
force was justified, Conrad said the public should know that sometimes deadly
tactics by police are unavoidable.
“We absolutely cherish the importance of human life,” the
chief said. “The last thing any officer wants to have to do is take a life.”
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