- ICE officer shot and killed Black man celebrating New Year’s Eve
- Family demands criminal charges against the officer, claims unjust shooting
- Community raises over $370,000 through GoFundMe campaigns to support the victim’s family
Keith Porter Jr. was shot dead by an off-duty ICE officer at the apartment building where they both lived in Northridge, California. The incident took place on New Year’s Eve after Porter fired his rifle in the air in celebration and was accused of being an “active shooter.” BOSSIP previously covered the story, and today, there are a few updates worth sharing.
FOX 11 is reporting that Porter’s family has appeared before the Los Angeles Police Commission (LAPC) to demand that this shooting be treated criminally so that the ICE agent can be held to account. His mother, Franceola Armstrong, expressed how deeply she is grieving the loss of her son.
“He didn’t deserve this. He was on his way back. He didn’t even get to pop the champagne. He didn’t get to say goodbye,” she said during a city council meeting. “I just want to touch my baby one last time, kiss his face, and hold him. I don’t have him. His life was snatched from us.”
The agent in question has not been publicly identified, nor has he been arrested. The Department of Homeland Security is investigating the shooting, and the LAPD is in charge of its own investigation. We have no faith that either outfit is working too hard to find reasons to arrest one of their own.
Money cannot buy a life, but it can make dealing with the expenses of death and the potential wrongful death lawsuit much easier to facilitate. As of this writing, the two separate GoFundMe campaigns have been launched by Porter’s mother and father. The father, Keith Porter Sr., has raised $299,079, and Ms. Armstrong’s campaign has raised $73,940 on behalf of her son’s young daughter for a grand total of $373,019.
The community is not going quietly into the night and allowing this agent to get away with what is believed to be an unjust shooting. According to KTLA, a crowd of people pulled up on the LAPC to press for justice. One of those in attendance was Porter’s cousin Jsane Tyle,r who made a very salient point about how the agent was handled post-incident.
“We don’t know what kind of drugs or alcohol he was on in his home alone celebrating New Year’s Eve,” she said, further claiming the officer was “never taken down for proper interrogation.”
Being that the agent lived in the complex and it was New Year’s Eve, it is more than fair to ask that he be subject to such tests to answer whether or not he was impaired and made a rash decision to kill Porter.
We will continue to watch this space.
