Moments later, they shot her dead, claiming she had made life-threatening gestures with a screwdriver.And in March, a man with a history of mental illness, Gus Henry Woods, was also killed by a police bullet after he threatened officers with a thin metal rod that he had been using to scratch the side of his own car.In each case the LAPD could claim the victim failed to heed warnings and was acting in an aggressive manner. A month ago, two Los Angeles Police Department officers stopped a 50-year-old homeless woman, Margaret Mitchell, in Hollywood to establish whether she had stolen her shopping trolley. Not until an officer had shot him through the ribs and killed him did the police realise the object was no knife, but a ballpoint pen. That may sound as if it is an isolated incident of an officer losing his cool, but it isn't. Sure enough, Daniel Garcia Zarraga soon came lunging at them with a glinting metallic object.

THE CALL came in the middle of the night from a bad neighbourhood. The Los Angeles police officers responding to the domestic violence complaint late last week were told the man they were after was armed with a kitchen knife. Police said Mr Byrdsong suffered a severed aorta and died in hospital from internal bleeding.. "At this point we're not jumping to the conclusion that it's a hate crime," said Patrick Camden, spokes-man for the police department. "All of the elements appear to be there, but until we get the offender, we won't know."Mr Byrdsong was a well-known basketball figure who retired as coach to the Northwestern University team in 1997. He was walking near his home in the suburb of Skokie when he was hit in the lower back by a bullet apparently fired from the suspect's car. One of those injured, Gideon Sapir, is an Israeli citizen and a former resident of the West Bank.Chicago police were holding back from describing the shootings as racist.

Meanwhile, public outrage was voiced in Israel over the attacks. From Roger's Park, he travelled to Skokie, where he shot Mr Byrdsong and from there to another neighbourhood, where he fired into the car of an Asian couple - neither of whom was hurt.Yesterday, an American Jewish organisation offered a $10,000 (pounds 6,370) reward for information leading to the arrest of the gunman. "The whole community feels violated and they're doubly violated because it happened on a holy day."In all, the suspect drove about 10 miles during his Friday night attack. Descriptions of the assailant appeared to match those of the suspect in Friday's Chicago shootings. The student, who was in hospital yesterday, was hit in the leg.The man's rampage began in Roger's Park, a racially diverse neighbourhood on the northern edge of Chicago and home to high numbers of Orthodox Jews.

He first struck as Jews were walking home from their Sabbath services Bullets from two guns, one an automatic, hit six men. Two are in hospital with serious wounds."They are so vulnerable on the Sabbath," remarked Howard Carroll, a former state senator and resident of the district. The slain man was named as Ricky Byrdsong, a black basketball coach, who was walking with his children.Meanwhile, police were investigating a drive-by shooting of an Asian student in the university town of Urbana, 60 miles south of Chicago, late on Saturday night. Witnesses described the suspect as a white male, aged 25-30; all his victims were from minority communities, including one African American, six Orthodox Jews and an Asian couple.