A law enforcement official identified Robinet, 39, as the man police killed Sunday on Skid Row. The official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and talked to
The Associated Press
on condition of anonymity.
French authorities came forward late Tuesday and said Robinet is a law-abiding citizen who is "alive and well in France." The man killed during an altercation with police had stolen Robinet's identity and used it to acquire a French passport to come to the United States in the late 1990s, the
Los Angeles Times
reports.
Axel Cruau, the French consul general in Los Angeles, said the identity theft was discovered after the man was convicted of the bank robbery and officials began preparing the paperwork to deport him, thinking he was a French citizen. French officials notified their U.S. counterparts when they realized the man was not the real Robinet but did not know what happened after that.
On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the man was actually from Cameroon, the francophone nation in Central Africa.