![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767593420_758_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA tearful candlelight vigil was held in Northridge for a man shot to death on New Year\u2019s Eve by an off-duty immigration officer.<\/p>\n
Sunday evening, a crowd of about 50 gathered on wet asphalt outside the Village Pointe apartment complex in Northridge to grieve Keith Porter Jr. The group included activists, family members and Porter\u2019s co-workers from Home Depot. The Compton man was shot at the complex on Dec. 31 by an off-duty Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, according to authorities.<\/p>\n
Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles \u2014 of which Porter was a member \u2014 said in a news release that the vigil was organized to memorialize the 33-year-old father and call for an independent investigation into his death.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to recognize that one of the worst imaginable injustices has been committed, and there will be time for us to protest,\u201d Melina Abdullah, a co-director of Black Lives Matter Grassroots, said during the vigil. \u201dThis is a time for grief. \u2026 We are not going to be quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement after the incident, Homeland Security officials said the agent was \u201cforced to defensively use his weapon\u201d and opened fire \u201cto protect his life and that of others.\u201d Officials said Porter was an \u201cactive shooter\u201d threat.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mourners gather Sunday at a vigil organized by Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles for a man who was fatally shot on New Year\u2019s Eve.<\/p>\n
(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
According to a statement from the civil rights organization Project Islamic Hope, Porter was celebrating the new year by firing a rifle into the air when an \u201coverzealous\u201d off-duty agent shot him.<\/p>\n
Firing guns into the air, which poses the risk of people being injured or killed, is a felony. The fatal shooting of Porter is under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department\u2019s Robbery-Homicide Division, officials said. The FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice and Homeland Security Investigations also are handling the case because a federal agent was involved.<\/p>\n
On Sunday evening, mourners crouched around a makeshift memorial and wrote heartfelt messages to Porter and his family on a small board above his photo. Porter is survived by a 9-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n
Bishop Jack Wilson, a friend of Porter\u2019s mother, was on hand for the gathering. The Solid Rock Mission Church official said he remembered Porter as a child, when he was always smiling and had the manners of an old Southern gentleman.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was full of life, and always smiling,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cIt hurts me that he didn\u2019t take his last breath, but his last breath was taken from him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abdullah said Black Lives Matter Grassroots, an activist group within the BLM movement, would meet with L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman on Tuesday morning to demand that there be a federal investigation into the agent responsible for the killing. Authorities had yet to identify the agent Sunday.<\/p>\n
Hochman \u201cwas elected from the backing of police associations that came from murderous cops, like the one who stole Keith\u2019s life,\u201d Abdullah said. \u201cThe people have the power, and the people have a demand.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tearful candlelight vigil was held in Northridge for a man shot to death on New Year\u2019s Eve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[8685,6577,63503,63501,32782,8593,63504,48,52,51,1637,47,50,49,1555,63502,18754,62153,3335,592,4592],"class_list":["post-120474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-activist","tag-authority","tag-black-lives","tag-emotional-vigil","tag-eve","tag-family-member","tag-homeland-security-official","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-life","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-man","tag-melina-abdullah","tag-new-year","tag-off-duty-ice-agent","tag-official","tag-people","tag-porter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}