AUSTIN, Minn. – The man shot and killed by police after a 24-hour stand-off was hardly well known in Austin. People who did know Kokou Christopher Fiafonou recognized he had mental issues but were surprised at hia bizarre behavior on December 23, which started with him walking in traffic with a machete. An immigrant at an Austin pork-packing plant, Abang Obong, remembers when he first heard what had happend: “Oh no, not in Austin,” she said, recalling the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. “And now this one is like home, home. I didn’t know how to react,” Obong told an interviewer. “That could have been my dad.” Obong said Fiafonou’s mother at the processing plant often prayed at work. Fiafonou lived with Antranette Smith, her husband and children in an apartment on the North Side. Their place was severely damaged in the stand-off. Fiafonou had relatives in Iowa.
