Just a day after the Dallas sniper shootout at a protest rally in Texas against the recent encounters of two black men in the US, police in Houston, Texas shot down another black man on Saturday, after he was seen with his gun in the middle of the road. 

The man died on the spot. 

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According to the Houston Police, the man, identified as Alva Braziel by a woman claiming to his wife, was spotted by the cops with a gun in his hand at around 12.40 a.m as they were patrolling Cullen Street.

On being asked to stop and drop the weapon, the cops claim that Braziel raised his gun to the sky and then, allegedly pointed it toward the cops. That is when cops fired the fatal shots that killed Braziel instantly, The Houston Chronicle reported. 

As per a statement released by the Acting Houston Police Chief on Sunday, the 38-year-old man might have been high on drugs. He had a previous police record for drugs and had even served jail time for it. He was also charged in 2001 for illegal possession of a firearm, after which he wasn’t allowed to keep one. 

Here is video of the encounter, as recorded by a CCTV camera :

According to the Houston police spokesperson, Jodi Silva, the cops involved in the shooting are both veterans with 10 and 13 years of experience respectively. The spokesperson also said that the man was shot in self defense, only after he waved his gun at the cops. She said :

“The officers, in fear of their safety, discharged their duty weapons,” she said.

After the recent spate of violence and outrage that followed the shootings of Philando Castille and Alton Sterling, Americans are in a state of horror and anger. As news of the of the Braziel shooting spread, #Groucho and #AlvaBraziel started trending on Twitter, in solidarity with the death. The fact that the case received negligible media coverage also did not go unnoticed. 

A District Attorney investigation has been initiated into the case.

(Feature Image : Representational | Source: Reuters)