OH authorities on Thursday stated that the Columbus officer, Bryan Mason, who was responding to a report of a $10 armed robbery shot Tyre King, an eighth grader, multiple times on Wednesday night, September 14th after the youngster pulled a BB gun from his waistband that looked “practically identical” to the weapon carried by officers.
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The officers went searching for the group of armed robbers and found three men, including King, who matched their descriptions. He says they did, but then Tyre got up and ran and was shot, the paper reported Friday.
Police say officers followed potential suspects into an alley, and Tyre pulled a weapon from his waistband and was shot.
Officers were dispatched after a report of an armed robbery involving multiple suspects who allegedly approached the victim, one of them brandishing a gun and demanding money.
A spokesman for Columbus police says they won’t comment on how Braxton’s story compared with officers’ accounts.
Jacobs urged calm, promising to investigate the case “thoroughly”, and said that a grand jury would decide whether criminal charges should be filed against the police officer who shot the boy dead.
“It looks like a firearm that could kill you”, Jacobs said, as she held up an image of the same type of BB gun.
Police say Tyre (ty-REE’) King died at a children’s hospital shortly after the shooting, which started with a 911 call about an armed robbery.
According to the police, Tyre drew what appeared to be a handgun from his waistband during a confrontation with officers in an alley on Wednesday in Columbus.
Members of the football team, the Columbus Day Stars, stood by as Bell spoke during the vigil.
The officer was identified as Bryan Mason, a nine-year veteran, who fatally shot a man in 2012.
How exactly King acted before he was shot dead is not known at the moment, the family said, and called for an independent investigation. Walton said he’s looking for people with information in the case to come forward. “Why didn’t they tase him?” That’s when Tyree pulled out a gun with a laser sight, and one officer fired his weapon, hitting the boy repeatedly, police said.
“There is something wrong in this country, and it is bringing its epidemic to our city streets”, Ginther said. His sister, 13-year-old Marshay Caldwell, was the only family member to speak during the vigil, according to the Dispatch.
Lawyer Sean Walton said there are witnesses who do not corroborate what authorities say happened.
Rice’s death became a rallying point for the Black Lives Matter movement and was one of a number of deaths that led to nationwide demonstrations against the use of excessive and sometimes deadly force against minorities, especially young black men, by police officers.
Maryam Abidi, of the OSU (Ohio State University) Coalition for Black Liberation, called the shooting “yet another example of the racist institution of policing”.
The Columbus police chief dismissed parallels made between King’s death and that of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy who was shot and killed by a police officer in Cleveland in November 2014. Some carried signs calling for justice for Tyre, while candles spelled out “RIP Tyre King”. The officer was cleared in the incident.
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“There are allegations that have been made regarding his actions, and those allegations can not be taken as factual until a thorough, unbiased investigation has taken place”, Sean Walton, one of the lawyers with the family, said.
