More than 150 people, including some of King’s family members, gathered for a prayer vigil on Thursday near where he was shot, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
Advertisement
Nineteen-year-old Demetrius Braxton tells The Columbus Dispatch he had run away with Tyre and was with him when the shooting occurred. Then an unidentified witness overhears gunfire and tells a dispatcher: “He’s shooting him!”
Third, another witness to the robbery gets on the phone and says, “Do we have to stand here because I’m about to miss my bus and she got like…it’s bad we don’t even know which way to go cause it’s a bunch of them and they got guns”.
Police reviewing evidence from the scene determined the boy’s firearm was actually a BB gun with an attached laser sight.
City leaders in Ohio’s capital said the shooting would be investigated to determine whether the officer’s gunfire was justified. A grand jury will ultimately decide whether the officer should face criminal charges, police chief Jacobs said.
The coroner, Dr Anahi Ortiz, said Tyre’s post-mortem examination was complete but she would not yet release details, including where he was shot. She says the official manner of death is pending, with a final report not expected for several weeks.
The family also alleged that other witness accounts contradict what police say. “What is now out there might not be true”.
“There is something wrong in this country, and it is bringing its epidemic to our city streets”, Ginther says. “And a 13-year-old is dead in the city of Columbus because of our obsession with guns and violence”.
Authorities say the incident began just before 8pm Wednesday when officers responded to reports of a group of men demanding money from a victim and threatening him with a gun. Police say officers saw three males matching the suspects’ descriptions and tried to speak with them, when two of them ran off.
Police chased the pair, when one of the suspects allegedly pulled what looked like a handgun from his waist, police said. King later died in a hospital.
The officers involved will be mandated to undergo psychological support counseling, and will have the opportunity to “take leave time to assist in recovery from a traumatic experience”, according to Columbus police. He shot 13-year-old Tyre King in a Wednesday night confrontation after Tyre ran from officers investigating a reported armed robbery.
The Columbus Dispatch reported that investigators concluded Mason acted within policy in that case.
“We consider it a tragedy when something like this happens”, Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs told a news conference.
When they caught up with them, police said, “one suspect pulled a gun from his waistband”.
Jason Pappas, the president of the police union representing Mr Mason, said it is a situation no officer wants to encounter.
It’s always been called into question the propriety of a police department investigating its own officer.
Police initially identified the boy as Tyree, but his family says it’s spelled Tyre. He says the family believed that Tyre being involved in an armed robbery would be “so out of character” for him.
Attorneys for King’s family said the child enjoyed playing sports – football, hockey, soccer – and called for a thorough, “unbiased” investigation. He had a slight build and, if anything, was on the small side for his age, the lawyer said.
Advertisement
Rice had been drawing an airsoft gun from his waistband when Officer Timothy Loehmann, who is white, fired the fatal shots within two seconds of arriving outside a recreation center where the sixth-grader was on a playground, a prosecutor said. A rookie officer shot the boy nearly immediately after pulling up in his auto.
