Los Angeles police officers have continued to kill civilians at alarming rates and under questionable circumstances in the last three months, despite a summer of unprecedented activism and growingpolitical pressure from lawmakers.

Most recently, two deputies with the Los Angeles sheriff’s department (LASD) fatally shot a bicyclist, 29-year-old Dijon Kizzee, who was fleeing after officers tried to stop him for an alleged “vehicle code” violation. The killing on Monday of yet another Black man in South LA was one of more than 10 fatal police shootings in the LA region since the George Floyd protests erupted at the end of May.

“If they are killing in this climate, even with the light that has been shined on this, then it’s obvious that it’s their intent,” said Myesha Lopez, 35, whose father was killed by LASD in June. “I think the protests are only making them more agitated, more trigger-happy, more volatile, more unstable. I don’t believe these officers have the ability to reform themselves.”

Police leaders have put forward accounts of each killing that they say justify the use of force. But civil rights activists and victims’ families say the repeated bloodshed is a sign that police continue to escalate conflicts and resort to violence, even in the most routine of encounters – and that a more radical response is needed to prevent the next tragedy.

Steady killings during protests and pandemic

Police shoot an average of three to four people in LA county each month, or roughly 45 victims each year, according to an analysis by the LA Times. In the last two decades, officers have killed more than 1,000 people in the county, according to Youth Justice Coalition (YJC), an activist group.

Despite the pandemic shutdowns and heightened attention to police brutality, LA law enforcement is killing civilians at a rate that appears to be fairly consistent with previous years. From the start of 2020 through June, police in the county have killed at least 23 people, YJC says.

“It’s like there’s no end to it, it just keeps happening,” said Lupita Carballo, a 21-year YJC organizer who lives in South LA, near the site of the latest killing.

Since the end of May, when mass protests erupted in LA, officers have fatally shot 11 people, according to Black Lives Matter LA, which also tracks killings. The sheriff’s department, which is separate from the LA police department (LAPD) and patrols areas outside of the city, was responsible for seven of these deaths.