Debate is raging about the LAPD's fatal shooting of onetime college football player and sometime model Reggie Doucet Jr. in Playa del Rey last week.

Commenters at Simone Wilson's LA Weekly story are arguing about whether his race had anything to do with the cops' action, and whether he would have met his demise as he allegedly ran around naked shortly after 3 a.m. following a dispute with a cab driver if he was white.

Perhaps it's a fitting discussion, this being Martin Luther King Jr. Day and all. Still, as Wilson reports …

… the officer who shot him was an African-American rookie. Both cops who confronted him say they were attacked by him and punched in the head hard enough to send them to the hospital. The LAPD reports that Doucet allegedly tried to take one of the officers' guns.

The ex-footballer that night and early morning had been at Drai's, a Hollywood hotspot known for its party crowd.

Still, our commenter of the day, Washo, asks why the officers couldn't have tried less-than-lethal weapons before engaging in a “hands-on” confrontation that ended up in gunfire:

What don't you idots get! A young man, with a bright future, is dead becasue he was naked. That is what this all boils down to. I mean police now have rubber bullets, and tasers! I mean really, if your a cop and can't catch a naked man. Get your fat, out of shape ass, into a gym.

Agreed?

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.