Hundreds of people took to the streets in Brooklyn, New York a day after police shot and killed a black man with mental health issues.
Saheed Vassell, 34, was shot dead on Wednesday after police received calls of a man who appeared to be wielding a silver pistol and aiming it at people.
Officers and bystanders mistook the metal pipe in his hands for a gun, the New York Police Department (NYPD) said.
“If he was a white kid, he would not have died,” his aunt, Nora Ford said.
“Oh my God – I’m so angry,” she added during the Thursday night vigil not far from where Vassell died in the Crown Heights neighbourhood.
Video released by police show that in the moments before his death, Vassell had been brandishing the bent pipe like a gun and had pointed it at people on the street.
