LOS ANGELES (AP) – For months before he was fatally shot by police, a man walked the streets of Los Angeles’ Skid Row, with few or no one he encountered knowing anything about his past bank robbery conviction, his wanted probation status or that even the false name he lived under had been purloined from a Frenchman years earlier.
As those details were revealed Tuesday, more questions emerged about the man and his still-murky identity, including how he fell through so many cracks and ended up among downtown’s homeless, where millions would watch his death in a videotaped struggle.
A law enforcement official identified the man police shot Sunday as Charley Saturmin Robinet, 39. The official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and talked to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
But Axel Cruau, the consul general for France in Los Angeles, said the man stole the identity of a French citizen and was living in the United States under an assumed name. He had applied for a French passport in the late 1990s to come to the United States to pursue an acting career.
“The real Charley Robinet is in France apparently living a totally normal life and totally unaware his identity had been stolen years and years ago,” Cruau said.