A representative of his refugee resettlement agency says he was mentally ill and the police handled it wrong. Should have found a translator they say.
This is just one more example of the mental illness we are welcoming to America and the language problems being experienced by police and first responders. See Waterloo, Iowa just last week, here.
From Fox5 San Diego (hat tip: Robin):
SAN DIEGO – Friends of a young man with mental illness, who was killed by police after he threatened his family and police with knives and a stick at his City Heights apartment over the weekend, wondered if police could have handled it differently.
Patrol personnel went to the residence in the 3800 block of Menlo Avenue at 10:20 p.m. Sunday on reports that a man was threatening the lives of his family, according to San Diego police.
Officers arrived to find the man holding a knife and a stick and behaving in an “agitated” manner, Lt. Mike Hastings said. As the officers tried to persuade him to disarm himself, he allegedly began threatening them and retrieved a machete.
Officers tried in vain to subdue the suspect with stun guns and police dogs, Hastings said. When one of the canines approached, the man struck the animal on the back with the machete, according to police.
The suspect then allegedly swung the weapon at an officer, prompting two others to open fire. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died at the scene.
The man was identified by friends on a social media website as 21-year-old Burmese refugee from Myanmar named Ja Ma Lo Day. He was oldest brother of four siblings, all Burmese refugees who escaped their country due to religious and ethnic persecution, according to a friend of the family.
He suffered from mental illness and had been involved in several prior encounters with the police, according to the online posting.
How many Burmese are in the US?
Here is one accounting of how many we have resettled over the last 12 years from Burma and camps in Thailand. They are still coming.
*Burmese refugees resettled in the US since 2001: 97,713
*Chin Refugees resettled in the US since 2001: 30,453
*Karen Refugees resettled in the US since 2001: 57,962
*The rest ethnic groups from Burma in the US since 2001: 9297
This last number above would include Burmese Muslims/Rohingya