As Ohio authorities investigate the fatal police shooting of a 13-year-old boy who officers said pulled a realistic-looking BB gun from his waistband, law enforcement agencies are grappling with suspects using fake guns to commit real crimes.
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Demetrius Braxton, who is 19 and was in the alley with King, admitted to police during questioning that the slain teen had wanted to rob someone for money.
Police said an officer who believed the gun was real shot the boy Wednesday night after witnesses reported that a group of people had robbed a man of $10.
“Our objective was mainly to express solidarity with Tyre King and his family, just to show that we won’t stay “calm” as suggested by the Columbus police chief, (and) we won’t trust the police’s account of the event”, Pesala said. “But what they’re not going to do is address the fact the boy was running from the officer when he was shot”.
Demonstrators are calling for an independent investigation of the fatal police shooting of a 13-year-old OH boy and urging Columbus police to spend more on violence prevention programs.
He died at a hospital. He would not discuss any previous dealings Tyre had with police but said the boy had no violent criminal history.
Authorities said it wasn’t clear if the shooting was caught on surveillance or cellphone video.
Tyre played several sports, including football, and was in the young scholars program at school, Walton said.
The officer who fired, nine-year police veteran Bryan Mason, was put on administrative leave.
Ross said two police officers and University of Pennsylvania police officer Ed Miller chased the man into an alley, where he was shot and killed. It is the belief of the investigators that those individuals may possess information which would will help piece together the events that occurred before Tyre King was Anyone with information is being asked to contact homicide investigators at 614-645-4624. They said he had a slight build and, if anything, was on the small side for his age.
There is something wrong in this country, and it is bringing its epidemic to our city streets, Ginther said Thursday.
The local police union president has said Mason did what he had to do. Police say officers saw three males matching the suspects’ descriptions and tried to speak with them, when two of them ran off.
The shooting will be reviewed internally, which is required under Columbus Division of Police protocol. Police records show that in 2012 he shot and killed a man who was holding another person at gunpoint.
In that case, the 9-1-1 caller who reported the ostensible threat mentioned thinking the gun might not be real, a detail that was not relayed to the responding officers.
Records show the OH officer who fatally shot a 13-year-old boy while investigating a reported armed robbery last week met or exceeded standards in a recent performance evaluation. Image courtesy of the Columbus Dispatch.
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“Our officers carry a gun that looks practically identical to this weapon found at the scene of the shooting”.
