The homeless man shot dead by police in Los Angeles has been identified as a Cameroonian who had robbed a bank to pay for acting classes.
Charly Keundeu Keunang, 43, died from multiple gunshot wounds following a confrontation in the city’s Skid Row district.
Footage filmed on a bystander’s phone, which prompted protests, showed Mr Keunang swinging at police before he is knocked to the ground. A stun gun is heard, then five shots ring out. Officers claimed they shot Mr Keunang after he tried to grab the gun of a rookie policeman.
Today it emerged he had used a false French passport to travel from Cameroon to Los Angeles and had hopes of becoming a successful actor.
But the Hollywood dream went sour and he wound up homeless — and known simply as “Africa” — in Skid Row, an area where around 1,700 people sleep rough every night.
Since the Nineties, he had used a French passport issued under a stolen name, Charley Saturin Robinet.
He travelled to the US, where in 2000 he was convicted of robbing an LA branch of Wells Fargo bank and pistol-whipping an employee. The LA Times reported that he told authorities the robbery was an effort to raise cash for acting classes at Beverly Hills Playhouse, whose alumni include George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Mr Keunang was convicted of the robbery and jailed, all under the false name. But French officials discovered the real Charley Saturin Robinet was alive and well in France.
After discovering Mr Keunang was from Cameroon, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said repeated requests for documentation from the country were made but ignored, hampering efforts to deport him.
In 2013, Mr Keunang was released from federal prison in Minnesota to a halfway house in LA, which he left on probation last May. A warrant for probation violation was issued after he failed to turn up for check-ins. Officials lost track of him last November, but there was apparently little effort made to find him.
