White People Killed By Police: Unarmed 73-Year-Old California Man Killed While Standing In Driveway

An unarmed white Hispanic man was fatally shot nine times by police in California Monday as he walked outside his home before sunrise. Francisco Serna, 73, suffered from dementia and was standing in a driveway when he was killed by Bakersfield Police officers.

The man's son, Rogelio Serna, said in a Facebook post his father had been “murdered” and the family wanted “the truth to be told.” “Right across the street is where the police shot my father with nine bullets to his body,” Serna’s son said in a video on Facebook. “My dad was not armed … there’s false reports about my father having weapons, he was never armed.”

Police were responding to reports of an armed man in Serna's neighborhood. Sgt Gary Carruesco, Bakersfield police spokesman, told the Guardian a weapon was not found at the shooting site. The officer who killed Serna has not been named.

"During the contact, one officer fired several rounds, striking the subject," police said in a statement.

Serna's family scheduled a vigil Tuesday night to honor his life. His son wrote on Facebook: “HE TOOK HIS LAST WALK,AND WAS KILLED IN A 15 MIN WINDOW FRAME RITE [sic] ACROSS THE STREET FROM HIS HOME.”

The Black Lives Matter social justice movement has stroked national debate about police force in recent years. While it is true that police kill more white people than black people, when adjusted for population, black people are disproportionately killed in police shootings, a Washington Post investigation found. The report concluded that 1,502 people were shot and killed by on-duty police officers in 2015. Of those, 732 were white, and just 381 were black. Another 382 were of another or unknown race. Whites represent 62 percent of the nation's population, while blacks make up 13 percent of the population but 24 percent of those shot.