Police shoot, kill man in Richmond's East End

Richmond police shot a young man to death Monday afternoon on an East End street after the man allegedly opened fire on an officer who confronted him.Police said the man may have been one of three suspects being sought in an armed robbery of a woman on North 24th Street, about six blocks away from the fatal encounter, which began at 1:30 p.m. near Mosby Street and Fairmount Avenue. Police said the man fired on an officer who gave chase. The chase ended with what Police Chief Andre Parker described as "an exchange of some gunfire" that left the man dead in an alley behind the Marketplace 14 convenience store on Mosby, across the street from Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School. Yesterday's fatality marked the fourth police-related shooting this year and the 12th since June 2001. In eight of the 12 shootings, a suspect has died. Two years ago, Parker promised an independent study of his officers' use of force after a string of five fatal shootings between June 2001 and July 2002. Last month, however, Parker said the study had been called off on advice of the city attorney's office. [more ]