A white USA police officer has shot and killed a 13-year-old black boy in the state of OH while chasing down suspects of a reported robbery, after the teenager allegedly pulled out a pellet gun.
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Our news partner WBNS-TV in Columbus reports police were dispatched to a reported armed robbery on the city’s east side around 7:45 p.m. Wednesday.
The shooting happened Wednesday night, when an alleged robbery victim told officers that a group of individuals had approached him, one of them brandishing a gun, and demanded money, a police statement said. “In theory, toy guns are supposed to have an orange tip on them or a laser sight so people know the difference”, said Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore police officer and associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in NY, “but often they come without the tip or you just are unable to tell the difference in the heat of the moment”. Police say officers saw three males matching the suspects’ descriptions and tried to speak with them, when two of them ran off.
Police said a man reported being robbed by three men, one of whom had a gun.
Despite Braxton’s comments, there was still a sense of distrust among some Columbus residents about the shooting, which has been compared to the shooting of Tamir Rice, a twelve year old in Cleveland who was killed by a police officer while possessing a BB gun in 2014.
The 19-year-old male, who was with King, was questioned by police and released.
Sirens are heard moments later as police search for the suspects.
Police later established that the boy had actually been carrying a BB gun – a type of sporting air gun that is created to shoot pellets – with an attached laser sight.
Police Chief Kim Jacobs said officers carry guns that look practically identical, saying of a replica of Tyre’s gun in a picture, “As you can see, it looks like a firearm that could kill you”.
Mason has shot and killed someone while on duty before.
Police promised to investigate the case “thoroughly”, but lawyers for King’s family called for an independent investigation, saying some witness accounts conflicted with the police version of what happened, according to the Associated Press news agency.
After the shooting, Tyree King was taken to a children’s hospital, where he later died.
Dispatchers had received a 911 call reporting that someone was pointing a gun at people in the park, with the caller adding that the gun was “probably fake” and the carrier was “probably a juvenile”.
Police have shot and killed dozens of people holding what turned out to be toy guns, with at least 60 such deadly shootings since the start of 2015, according to The Post’s database. He said the boy was trying to either hand it over or show police it wasn’t real, but the officers had no way of knowing that.
Early Thursday morning, police said the person killed was 13-year-old Tyre King.
The police department gave Mason a Silver Cross award for bravery in 2010, Weiner said. “This is the last thing any police officer wants”. Columbus police don’t use body cameras.
Chief Kim Jacobs said Thursday that investigators don’t yet have enough facts about the Wednesday night death of 13-year-old Tyre King to know how it relates to other cases. Tamir’s death was among those that helped propel the Black Lives Matter movement to national prominence.
Evidence from Wednesday’s shooting will automatically be presented to a grand jury.
Officer statements were still being gathered on Thursday, Jacobs said.
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The gun was later found to be a type of air gun that is a virtually indistinguishable from a police pistol – but shoots pellets rather than actual bullets. The third suspect in the robbery has not been located.
