Boy identified as victim of Los Angeles shooting

Los Angeles : A person killed by Los Angeles police over the weekend has been identified as a 16-year-old Latino boy who police said was carrying a realistic-looking replica of a pistol, the coroner's office confirmed Thursday to AFP.

The death Sunday of Daniel Henrique Perez was the city's second at police hands during the weekend.

An 18-year-old African-American, Carnell Snell, was killed the previous night following a foot pursuit. Police released body-camera footage that appeared to show him holding a firearm.

Los Angeles police chief Charlie Beck said Perez was holding a replica gun with its telltale orange tip covered by black paint when police approached him.

Beck released a security video he said "clearly refutes" reports that Perez was shot while on the ground, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Amid rising concern over police-involved deaths, two black men in their 30s were killed earlier last week in Southern California: Reginald Thomas, who died after being hit by a police Taser in Pasadena, and Alfred Olango, shot by San Diego police while holding an electronic cigarette that police mistook for a weapon.

The incidents, like many before them, touched off days of protests, some of them violent, adding to already sore racial tensions across the country.