A police union leader says the OH officer who fatally shot a 13-year-old boy while investigating a reported armed robbery is a well-respected policeman who did what he had to do in that circumstance.
Advertisement
The coroner in Columbus said Friday that Tyre (ty-REE’) King’s autopsy was done but she isn’t yet sharing details, including where he was struck. “The investigation is still ongoing, and we still have people that we want to find”.
At a news conference Thursday, Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs told the press he considers it “a tragedy when something like this happens”.
Mr Braxton has been interviewed by police but not charged.
Police initially identified the boy as Tyree, but his family says it’s spelled Tyre. Officers had been pursuing him and because he matched the description of an armed robbery suspect, police said. The robbery victim told a police dispatcher that it resembled a particular Ruger semi-automatic pistol. Police are still searching for the other suspects.
One unidentified witness told a 911 operator: “He’s shooting him!” No one else was injured. “We’re the safest big city in America, we have a 13-year-old dead, that’s unacceptable”.
The officer involved in the shooting, Bryan Mason, was a nine-year veteran of the force.
“Our officers carry a gun that looks practically identical to this weapon”, she says. In 2012, while responding to a 911 call at a Columbus home, he fatally shot an armed man, Weiner said. In that case, the man was pointing his gun at another man, and refused orders to drop his weapon.
Mason was cleared of any wrongdoing in that shooting.
Police said Thursday that they couldn’t immediately provide other information from Mason’s personnel record.
A lawyer for Tyre’s family called for a fair and independent investigation into his death.
Sean Walton declined to discuss any previous interaction Tyre had with police, but he emphasized that Tyre didn’t have any violent criminal history.
The incident began just before 8 pm on Wednesday when police responded to reports of an armed robbery.
Friends and family members gathered for a vigil for an OH 13-year-old who authorities said was fatally shot by a police officer after the boy allegedly pulled out a BB gun.
“The family is obviously distraught by the murder of Tyre”, attorney Chanda L. Brown said in the statement, which described Tyre as a typical 13-year-old boy who was active in football, soccer, hockey and gymnastics.
Police and city authorities also promised a full investigation, while rejecting comparisons to the 2014 killing of 12-year-old Tamir in Cleveland.
There was no chase in Tamir’s case.
The shooting quickly drew widespread attention on social media, as people took sides to find fault with either the police or the boy.
While trying to apprehend King, Mason shot the teenager after he pulled out the BB gun, police said.
He was shot in a Columbus alley around nightfall Wednesday. Stephen Mader, a police officer in Weirton was sacked following an incident where he decided not to fire his gun at a mentally disturbed man and instead tried to de-escalate the situation. The youth died a little while later in the hospital. It also came in the wake of over 2,000 police shootings since Ferguson that have raised many questions about police conduct, accountability, racism and militarization, but resulted in nearly no findings of wrongdoing.
Advertisement
A white U.S. 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.
