A homeless black man shot dead by California police on Wednesday is a father-of-two, former bodybuilder who fell on hard times, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Family photos posted on Facebook show Kurt Reinhold, 42, smiling and hugging his elementary school-age son and daughter.
Reinhold was killed during a struggle with two Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputies in San Clemente that was caught on camera on Wednesday.
The killing sparked protests on Thursday against police brutality which led to the city council imposing a curfew.
Police said Reinhold was homeless and had moved to the Southern California town from nearby Los Angeles in the past month.
It’s unclear how the once happy Reinhold ended up in the streets. Photos posted on his Facebook page show happier, more prosperous days. The son of an elementary school teacher posted pictures of himself in 2015 dressed in a suit on a date with his children’s mother at the Hollywood Pantages Theater where they saw a performance of Riverdance 2.
In another picture he posed in front of a black Mercedes car, and also shared family photos with the mother, Latoya Courtney, on holiday in Aruba in 2016.
Reinhold’s family, seen hugging each other next to Black Lives Matter signs on the lawn outside their home in Los Angeles on Friday, declined to comment.
A neighbor told DailyMail.com Reinhold was a ‘lovely man’ and said they were devastated that the shooting left his two children without a father. The father-of-two was religious, describing himself online as an ‘Apostolic Christian’.
It is not clear whether he was still in a relationship with his kids’ mother Latoya, an LA-based nurse practitioner from St Louis, Missouri.
Witnesses said the two officers stopped Reinhold for jaywalking, though Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes did not confirm the claims.
A bystander caught the man’s altercation with two officers on camera, showing the 42-year-old stood in the middle of South El Camino Real outside the Miramar Hotel, shouting at the cops ‘Don’t touch me’, while they told him to sit on the sidewalk.
After batting away the officers’ outstretched hands and saying ‘Where did I jaywalk? Why did you stop me?’ while walking towards them, the two deputies tackled Reinhold to the ground and struggled with him.
Vehicles driving along the street block the camera´s view of the struggle as one shot rings out, then another about five seconds later. The sounds of sirens wail the background.
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Source: Daily Mail
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