A teenage boy was fatally wounded by police in Columbus, Ohio, when he pulled out a weapon that authorities later learned was a BB gun as officers tried to apprehend him, police told local media yesterday. Police in OH responding to a report of an armed robbery shot and killed a boy who they said pulled a gun from his waistband that was later determined to be a BB gun.
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Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs held up a picture of the kind of gun Tyre had and said it looked like a “firearm that could kill you”.
The shooting is still under investigation. The case comes at a time of increased tensions over the fatal shootings of black people by white officers, and it has garnered comparisons to the 2014 police shooting of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy shot dead while playing with a toy pellet gun in a Cleveland park.
“There is something wrong in this country, and it is bringing its epidemic to our city streets”, he said. “As a mayor and a father, the loss of a 13-year-old in the city of Columbus is troubling”.
As reported by WBNS-TV, police said they spoke with witnesses to the robbery and the shooting, and were still searching for the third suspect.
Sean Walton emphasised that Tyre did not have any violent criminal history.
“By the end of the year, we plan on purchasing body cameras for all of our officers, and they will be wearing them when they are on duty”, Stone told The Lantern in an interview Thursday afternoon about the upcoming Community Police Academy that University Police is hosting. Earlier, police said the boy’s name was Tyree.
In Tamir’s case, a 911 caller reported someone pointing a gun at people near a recreation center.
Evidence from the shooting will automatically be presented to a grand jury to determine whether the officer’s actions were justified.
“It turns out to not be a firearm in the sense that it fires real bullets, but as you can see, it looks like a firearm that could kill you”, she said.
King’s family members say witness accounts don’t match the police record and released a statement and a photo of the child on Thursday.
Groups in Columbus rallied again in July when the issue of violence involving police was pushed back into the national consciousness after officers fatally shot black men in Baton Rouge and near St. Paul, Minnesota, and a gunman killed five Dallas police officers. “The best thing that the City of Columbus could do to ease the minds and fears of its citizens is to step aside and let an independent party investigate the matter”.
An investigation revealed that Rice, who died a day after the shooting, had been seen holding a replica gun that shoots plastic pellets.
As authorities investigate the fatal shooting of a 13-year-old black boy, Tyre King, by a white police officer after a report of an armed robbery, details are emerging about him.
“Officers carry a gun that looks practically identical to this weapon”, he said.
In this frame from video, police work at the scene of a shooting on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016, in Columbus, Ohio.
Jacobs identified the officer who shot King as Bryan Mason, a nine-year veteran. Police said the following year that Mason acted within the department’s policies.
Mr Walton said the family believed Tyre being involved in an armed robbery would be “so out of character” for him. That woman on the phone apparently dialed 911 for the alleged robbery victim, who told police he wasn’t going to bother calling – until the woman did it for him – because the teens had only stolen $10. Police said he and the other officers will receive “mandated psychological support counseling” and can take leave time “to assist in recovery from a traumatic experience”.
Dozens of people attended a Thursday evening vigil near the scene of the shooting.
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Prosecutor Tim McGinty said Tamir – who was big for his age – was pulling the pistol from his waistband when he was shot.
