Gambia Calls For Credible Probe of Citizen Killed By US Police

Gambia’s government called Tuesday for a credible and transparent investigation into the killing of one of its citizens by United States police in the state of Georgia last Friday.

RELATED:
Thousands Attend #BlackLivesMatter Protests in Paris

Gambia’s foreign affairs ministry said it had “asked the Gambian Embassy in Washington D.C. to engage the relevant U.S. authorities including the State Department, to seek a transparent, credible, and objective investigation in the matter.”

The victim is Momodou Lamin Sisay, the son of Gambian diplomat and U.N. official, Lare Sisay of Kudang, who told local media he was withholding judgment on the incident pending results of an autopsy and findings from a private investigator while referring to his son as “somebody who abhors violence.”

According to Georgia’s authorities, preliminary information indicated police officers pursued Sisay after he failed to stop when they tried to pull him over for a vehicle tag violation. 

When the car eventually stopped and officers approached it, Sisay pointed a handgun at the officer and fired his weapon at the officers, one of whom returned fire. Sisay was pronounced dead at the scene.

“Yet another Police killing of a black man, yet another young life lost, yet another Police report blaming the victim – the facts are out there somewhere...We are still trying to piece together the little pieces of information," Banka Manneh, a Gambian living in Georgia urged people on Facebook for witnesses to come forward. 

The death of Sisay comes amid almost a week into large protests across the United States over the killing of another black man by police officers in Minneapolis. Protesters demand the government to stop the systematic killing of black people in the U.S. directly correlated to what they say "institutional racism."