50 Rally in Claremont to Protest Police Slaying of Black Motorist

Protesters marched through the leafy and usually quiet streets of Claremont on Wednesday, demanding that two police officers be taken off patrol duty because of their role in the fatal shooting of a young African American man earlier this year.

Irvin Landrum Jr., 18, was shot to death by the Claremont police officers during a traffic stop in January. The incident has triggered a federal investigation and prompted debate about police treatment of minorities in the predominantly white community.

One of the officers involved told investigators that Landrum had removed a gun from his waistband and fired. But a subsequent sheriff’s investigation showed that the gun Landrum allegedly pulled bore no fingerprints and had not been fired. The other officer declined to speak to sheriff’s detectives upon advice from his attorney.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the shooting for possible civil rights violations, and an official for the department said Wednesday that the federal investigation could take months to complete.

At the rally of about 50 protesters in front of City Hall on Wednesday, Landrum’s family and supporters complained that city officials have withheld information about the case, and allowed the two officers to go back on patrol while the federal investigation is continuing.

“Any time an officer says he heard a gunshot, and then it’s proven it didn’t happen, should we have this officer on the street?” said Obee Landrum, the victim’s uncle.

Landrum called on the city to finance an independent investigation because he said he has little faith in the federal inquiry. After six months, FBI agents have not conducted extensive interviews with the family, he said.

The officers involved in the shooting, Hany Hanna and Kent Jacks, did not respond to requests for interviews.

Joining the Landrum family at the protest were local activists, professors from the Claremont Colleges and relatives of Tyisha Miller, the woman who was shot to death in December by Riverside police as she sat in her car, clutching a gun.

The demonstrators said they plan to stage similar events every Wednesday to prompt the city to answer questions about the shooting. They also want to make residents aware of an incident that has gained much less attention than the controversial deaths of Miller and Margaret Mitchell, a homeless woman who was killed by police in Los Angeles in May as she allegedly approached them with a screwdriver.

Clad in T-shirts bearing photos of Irvin Landrum Jr., the demonstrators marched through the center of town, chanting “No Justice, No Peace.” The dead man’s infant son was there, carried by the child’s grandmother.

In the ivy-clad college town of 32,503, against the mountains on the eastern fringes of the county, protests over police brutality are usually textbook talk about big cities, not fixtures on “Village” sidewalks.

“We bought the bullets, we paid for the guns,” said Mike Noonan, a Claremont government critic who was among the demonstrators. “That means it’s our business what happened that night.”

A fact sheet distributed by the City Council said: “We continue to believe that the officers . . . have acted and continue to act in a professional manner and that this will be supported when all the investigations are formally concluded.”

In describing the incident, the statement took Officer Hanna’s account as fact: “Mr. Landrum stepped back, drew a revolver from his waistband, pointed the weapon at the officers and yelled, ‘You’re both dead!’ ”

But according to the sheriff’s report, only some of the investigators listening to a low-quality audiotape of the shooting said they could make out those words.

Assistant City Manager Bridget Healy refused to comment on why the officers are on duty or about the sheriff’s findings.

After the rally Wednesday, as the protesters moved through the New England-style streets--with cafes and barbershops and small hardware stores--residents expressed markedly different opinions about the incident.

Sitting in front of the Village Grill on Yale Avenue, Art Morin said people immediately assume the officers are guilty when police kill a black person in a predominantly white city. “That couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said.

Morin described Hanna as a courteous and restrained officer in a highly professional department. “But I think there should be an in-depth, independent investigation,” he said.

Across the street at Powell’s Hardware Store, clerk Marty Baker was emphatic. “I think if you don’t want to get shot, you don’t pull a gun on a cop,” he said.

But sipping latte at a cafe next door, two African American women, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that something was suspicious about the shooting and that they believed police overreacted to the situation. “I think they overdid it,” said one. “Police seem to have a license to kill.”

Sarah Walker, 25, a visitor from San Francisco who once lived in Claremont for four years, said she was disappointed to see so few residents turn out for the rally.

“Where’s the support?” said Walker, who is white. “Had it been a white student who was shot, I guarantee the whole town would be here.”