"What the report shows is that Ezell [Ford] was shot in the back and killed," Steve Lerman, the family's attorney, was quoted as saying in the newspaper.
According to the report, Ford was shot in the right arm, abdomen and back. The coroner ruled that the last shot was fatal. Muzzle imprints in the victim's skin indicate the shot was made at close range.
On August 11, Ezell Ford, 25, was fatally shot by Los Angeles Police Department officers Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas in the southern section of the city. The police report said that Ford had been stopped so the officers could talk to him and that during the conversation he had reached for one of their service weapons. Witnesses to the scene reported no struggle. Ford's family said he suffered from mental illness.
Beginning this summer, a wave of sometimes violent protests calling for accountability and racial equality by US police erupted across the United States after Eric Garner and Michael Brown, both unarmed black men, were shot and killed by white policemen. Grand jury indictments for both officers were rejected.
A recent Gallup poll showed that Americans consider racial issues to be at their highest level of importance in 20 years.
