'Active shooter' or a victim of ICE?

Friends and family say Keith Porter Jr., killed on New Year's Eve, didn't pose a threat.

- BY JAMES QUEALLY, LIBOR JANY AND CHRISTOPHER BUCHANAN

JULIANA YAMADA Los Angeles Times

FRANCEOLA ARMSTRONG, the mother of Keith Porter Jr., cries Monday as she embraces her cousin.

When Adrian Metoyer first heard government officials describing his best friend as an “active shooter” and threat to his community, he was furious.

Keith Porter Jr. was a lot of things: a jack of all trades who worked dozens of jobs, a proud “girl dad” to his two daughters, an avid fisherman, a die-hard San Francisco 49ers fan and a “performer” who loved to drive a room to laughter with his “goofy” antics, friends and relatives said.

But, they contend, Porter wasn't the threat Trump administration officials claimed he was after an off-duty U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed him in Northridge on New Year's Eve.

“That is far from the truth. I can’t even fathom that idea of him being looked at in a negative light. Calling the officer a hero, before any investigation had been conducted ... this is ridiculous,”

Metoyer, 45, said.

In the week that has passed since Porter's death, his loved ones and community activists have rejected the narrative offered by federal officials to explain his killing, acknowledging he may have been armed but maintaining he was only celebrating the new year - not trying to shoot anyone.

The use of deadly force by immigration agents was back in the national spotlight on Wednesday, after an ICE officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis and drew condemnation from the city's mayor, who called the incident "reckless." In a statement issued last week, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the U.S.

Department of Homeland Security, claimed Porter was suspected to be an "active shooter," and said he was killed following an exchange of gunfire with an off-duty ICE agent at the Village Pointe Apartments Roscoe Boulevard.