Policeman placed on leave after shooting man armed with knife

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan on Friday visited the family of an Israeli man of Ethiopian descent who was shot as he ran at a policeman while holding a knife last week, and told them that he was closely following the investigation into the incident and that the policeman involved had now been placed on leave.

Yehuda Biadga, 24, was killed last Friday, in his hometown of Bat Yam, after police said he charged at an officer with a knife. Police have denied Biadga’s heritage was connected to the policeman’s decision to open fire, saying he felt a credible fear for his life.

Erdan paid the private visit to the family alongside Bat Yam Mayor Tzvika Brot, where he expressed his condolences to Biadga’s relatives, according to a statement.

The minister said he would work to ensure lessons were learned from the incident, and that the family would be offered any help they needed. Erdan also pledged to meet with Biadga’s family members in the coming days.

The police officer involved in the shooting, who has not been named in media reports, initially returned to duty on Sunday morning.

After the shooting, police described the course of events in the wake of receiving reports of a young man with a knife in the stairwell of his apartment building who was feared to pose a threat to people in the vicinity. When officers arrived at the building, they were told the suspect had fled on foot to a nearby street.

During searches for the suspect, police said one of the officers saw Biadga approaching with a knife and ordered him to stop, but he ignored his calls. Feeling a threat to his life, the officer then fired at Biadga, police said.

Biadga was brought by paramedics to a hospital, where he succumbed to his wounds. He was buried Sunday.

Biadga’s family members have said they called police after he threatened his parents with a knife, and police on Sunday released a transcript of the call to an emergency dispatcher.

“At 45 Balfour Street in Bat Yam there is an incident. A 22-year-old is going wild with a knife, he wants to kill his parents,” the caller was quoted as saying by Hebrew media.

“He took a kitchen knife. He wants to kill his mother,” the caller added.

In the wake of the shooting, relatives accused police of using excessive force.

“When a terrorist comes to carry out an attack they say ‘Don’t shoot’ and if you do shoot, then at the legs. But when this is a citizen they shoot at his upper body — that isn’t normal,” Biadga’s brother, David, said.

“My brother was a totally normal person. A God-fearing young man,” David said, adding his brother was a good student and had served in the military.

But Yehuda Biadga’s brother-in-law Hagos Ubo said he had mental health problems and had recently stopped taking his medication. Ubo added that he was the one to call police, following an altercation between Biadga and his parents, but harshly criticized the officer for opening fire.

“They shot a person in the head in the crosswalk. Why not shoot in the air? They immediately shoot at the head in order to kill,” Ubo told Hebrew media.

Earlier this week a witness to the incident rejected claims that the officer was too quick to use his weapon due to underlying racial bias.

Speaking to the Haaretz daily newspaper on Sunday, the witness, 50, who lives in the central region of the country, said that the officer involved had only moments to open fire before the suspected attacker would have stabbed him.

“If the cop had waited another half a second he would have been stabbed with the knife,” he said. “It was clear he had to shoot. He was in immediate life-threatening danger. The whole thing happened really quickly, and he didn’t have time.”

The eyewitness, who was not named in the report, voluntarily contacted the Justice Ministry’s Police Internal Investigations Department to tell them what he had seen. On Sunday evening, officers came to his home to take his testimony, which backs up the version of events provided by the officer who opened fire, the report said.

The witness said that when on Sunday he saw that the shooting was being characterized as racially motivated, he felt he had to speak out.

More than 135,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel, most of them having immigrated in two waves in 1984 and 1991. But many have struggled to integrate into Israeli society amid lingering accusations of discrimination.

Community leaders and others have said there is a pattern of racism and abuse by police toward Ethiopian-Israelis, despite promises from on high to root out the problem.