US police shoot dead unarmed black man as he surrenders

Video footage has been released of two New Jersey police officers fatally shooting an African-American man who had his hands in the air, after a routine traffic stop quickly escalated.

Jerame Reid was in the passenger seat when the car was pulled over in December after it was driven through a stop sign. Footage filmed by the squad car's dashboard camera shows a police officer asking the driver for his licence. All of the men involved were African-American, except for one police officer.

The second officer then notices a gun in glove compartment and the two officers quickly draw their own weapons. "Show me your hands!" one officer repeatedly shouts. "If you reach for something, you're going to be f****** dead."

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After one of the officers retrieves the gun, the passenger door opens and Reid exits with his hands in the air in surrender, despite the police officers instructing him not to move. Both officers then open fire, fatally wounding him.

Protests have taken place on the streets of Bridgeton against the police's use of deadly force. They come months after nationwide protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York following the shooting of two unarmed black men. The latest death is likely to inflame racial tensions across the US.

Both officers have been placed on administrative leave while the local prosecutor's office looks into the incident. Activists, however, are calling on the state attorney general to investigate the fatal shooting.

"The video speaks for itself that at no point was Jerame Reid a threat and he possessed no weapon on his person," Walter Hudson, founder of the civil rights group the National Awareness Alliance, told the Associated Press. "He complied with the officer and the officer shot him."