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SAN LEANDRO — The family of a man killed by police inside a Walmart store said Friday he’s been wrongly portrayed by the media as mentally ill and the name of the officer who shot him should be disclosed.
Steven Taylor, 33, died after officers responded to a call that he was inside the store at 15555 Hesperian Blvd., about 3:15 p.m. April 18, brandishing a baseball bat and appearing to be threatening customers.
His grandmother, Addie Kitchen, told this news organization she regularly met with Taylor, who was homeless, about every two weeks and also gave him food.
“Whenever I saw him, he did not appear mentally ill,” Kitchen said. She noted that anyone living without a roof over their head would be under tremendous stress.
She said the media should have reached out to the family more after the shooting to get their perspective.
“There is so much that police can do instead of killing people,” Kitchen said. “People need to understand that we’re hurting, because nobody has said anything to us.”
On Friday, about a hundred friends and supporters of Taylor gathered on the front steps of the San Leandro Police Department on East 14th Street.
Among them was Sharon Taylor of Vallejo, Steven Taylor’s mother.
“We have not heard anything,” she about investigations into her son’s death by the San Leandro Police Department and the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.
Although she didn’t attend the gathering, City Councilwoman Corina Lopez issued a statement about the shooting, saying police interaction with the homeless needs to be reformed.
“Being homeless with mental health issues is not a crime,” Lopez said. “The way that we respond to the homeless with mental health issues must change.
“If the paradigm does not change and there is no reform,” she added, Steven Taylor “will have died in vain. We must provide wrap-around services to the most needy and disenfranchised.”
Mary Tieh, a friend of Taylor’s family, said homelessness, mental health and race issues are all connected to the movement to change how law enforcement departments are funded in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, who died last month when a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.
“We want social services that solve altercations peacefully and humanly, “Tieh said in a statement. “We’ve relied on the police to do the right thing, but instead, they took away the life of a homeless, African-American man who needed help.”
Part of the encounter between police and Taylor was caught on video by at least one shopper inside Walmart. The clip shows Taylor waving a bat as two officers approach him with guns drawn, not far from the shopping cart storage bay near the store entrance.
“Get back!” “Get back!” the officers shout several times, as a person in the background can be heard shouting, “Put it down! Put it down!”
At least one officer fires his taser weapon at Taylor, who staggers and then continues advancing. When he is about five feet from an officer, the video shows, that officer fires his gun once, striking Taylor in the chest.
Taylor staggers, drops the bat and falls to the floor. One shopper shouts: “Don’t shoot him no more.” Another yells: “Call an ambulance!”
