A 13-year-old black boy was fatally shot by a white OH police officer after pulling out a real-looking pellet gun during a confrontation, police said.
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CORRECTS NAME FROM TYREE KING TO TYRE KING – Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs holds up a photo showing the type of BB gun that police say a 13-year-old boy pulled from his waistband just before he was shot and killed by police investigating an armed robbery report, on Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016 in Columbus, Ohio.
According to an official statement from the Columbus Division of Police, the teenager died on Wednesday night because he pulled out what looked like a firearm while being chased by two officers who suspected him of participating in a nearby armed robbery. Police said that’s when 13-year-old Tyree King pulled out a gun, and one officer fired his weapon, hitting the boy repeatedly.
After the shooting, Tyree King was taken to a children’s hospital, where he later died.
The other male who was with King at the time of the shooting was not harmed, and after questioning, the police released him pending further inquiries.
Officers said they were attempting to speak with three people down the street who matched the descriptions of the male suspects when two of them fled on foot. Police are still searching for the other suspects.
Toy guns or reproductions can often appear indistinguishable from real weapons, and in shootings that involve such fake weapons, officers often say they could not tell the guns were not real.
Police in OH are investigating another case in which a white policeman fatally shot a black boy who had a pellet gun, but Columbus’ police chief says it’s too soon to draw comparisons to the Cleveland death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice.
“We want as quick an investigation as possible if it’s thorough”, said Jacobs.
What we do know, says Columbus’ mayor, is that America is obsessed with guns, a 13-year-old is dead, and “there is something wrong in this country”.
“These are crushing circumstances for everyone”, said Columbus Councilman Mitchell Brown.
Officials urged calm as the police investigate the King shooting, and said any evidence would be turned over to the county prosecutor for presentation to a grand jury. “Some of the officers at the scene were very disturbed about the fact that here we are out at this time of the night chasing [apparently] armed 13-year-olds”. In 2012, while responding to a 911 call at a Columbus home, Mason fatally shot an armed man, said Weiner, the police spokesman.
Columbus police chief Kim Jacobs called the King’s death “a tragedy”.
Tyre was an eighth-grader at Linden-McKinley STEM Academy, a Columbus city school on the north side, a few miles from where the shooting happened. A pellet gun that looked like a real weapon.
Police said Thursday that they couldn’t immediately provide other information from Mason’s personnel record.
“Our officers carry a gun that looks practically identical to this weapon”, she said.
Officer Mason is a nine-year veteran of the Columbus police.
According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 23 states and the District of Columbia regulate non-powder guns and 11 of them have age restrictions.
Investigators are also searching surveillance footage, but it does not appear that the officers were wearing body cameras. “The fact is that a young man in Cleveland and a young man in Columbus were both involved in police-involved shootings and unfortunately succumbed to their injuries”.
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Police initially identified the boy as Tyree, but his family says it’s spelled Tyre.
