Were there body cams present / operating? Other video? Other non-police witnesses?
Herd thinned. Most assuredly prevented more heinous mayhem at some future date.
Perhaps he" pulled out a BB gun" but it wouldn’t matter if he did or did not. The best scenario for the Cops is that he did and the Cops own the narrative. Had they said the kid didn’t “pullout a BB gun” there would be a bunch more outrage than there is now. The “waistband” thing “raises questions”.
It seems improbable to me that a 13 year old streetwise Black kid would brandish a BB gun. He knows it offers no defense and he knows it will get him shot. If anything he was trying to hide it.
But again: some Black kids run from the Cops because they know what the cops are capable of doing. They knew they had done nothing wrong and they knew that didn’t matter. So they ran. But just as in the Freddie Gray case not fast enough.
Worst case scenario - they saw the gun in his waistband and shot him .
*Course , it could be the Special Police that are allowed to shoot and kill with impunity .
The fact that they released the other kids suggest that they were not part of the group that did the crime.
What were they doing jackin’ people up with a BB gun on a school night?
three males matching the descriptions of the suspects
Means, “they were black”.
If he did pull a bb gun, I don’t blame the cops. They can’t tell between a fake gun and a real gun in a split second.
Ohio is an open carry state. So even if it had been a real gun the police would have had no reason to consider that as indicative of anything. (Yeah, right, but we already know what happens when white guys wave guns around, and it typically doesn’t end with them dead.)
OK, you live in an open carry state. Police, for reasons mysterious to you, begin to chase you. They’re yelling for you to stop running. “Halt! Turn around and put your hands up!” You continue to run, darting in and out of alleys and yards. Finally their pursuit corners you. They again command you to surrender. You wheel to face them, pulling your weapon from your waistband. They’re supposed to just stand there because you live in an open carry state? “Well, Bob, he is wielding that gun he’s brandishing legally. What do you think we should do?”
It seems improbable that any streetwise person would carry a replica gun in fucking Columbus, OH. Anywhere in Ohio. Anywhere at all, unless you are trying to scare people shitless, which is sometimes the case, if you remember.
We’re assuming that the kid was black, and probably, he was. You’re assuming that he’s “streetwise,” I suppose as an extension of his supposed blackness, but for the most part 13-year-olds are pretty stupid.
It’s very likely that the cops made bad judgments and were too quick to use force. It’s very likely that if he were white, even he had a real gun, he might still be alive. But playing with replica guns in the city is a very very stupid thing to do. Maybe he wasn’t playing.
Until we see or hear the video your scenario is complete fiction and “cop said” vs. “dead kids don’t talk.”
Learning a trade.
Yeah, I agree. If the events unfolded as described - chasing three young men down an alley and one pulls out a gun - I can’t fault the cop. This isn’t the same as Tamir Rice, who was given zero time to appreciate that he was having an encounter with a cop before said cop perforated him.
I want to see the bodycam video, though. Don’t trust a damn thing cops say after a shooting.
All the hatred and mistrust of law enforcement in this thread makes me so sad.
Maybe warranted, maybe not.
Either way, it is sad.
paulw’s comment was predicated on a hypothetical. He implies in an open carry state the brandishing of a weapon in the presence of a police officer, during an episode fraught with uncertainty and suspected criminal behavior or intent, is nevertheless no justification for use of police force MERELY BY VIRTUE OF THE INCIDENT TAKING PLACE IN AN OPEN CARRY STATE. He’s saying open carry laws afford someone carrying a gun openly the presumption of innocence, and they’re to be trusted to commit no act of aggression, even in the midst of a police action. Gun owners want all other gun owners left alone, right up to the moment they shoot a police officer. Then, and only then, has the gun owner presented a threat.
Or perhaps you figure the best thing is to get the weapon away from you before the police shoot you for having it.
We don’t know what happened here, just the police version of events (which, very sadly for all of us, is by default assumed to be self-serving at best). My point is that open-carry laws fatally complicate volatile situations both for the police and for open carriers, because a perfectly lawful course of action becomes grounds for instant death depending on a police officer’s evaluation of threat level (which we know from decades of reporting and statistics to be at best inaccurate.)
It is sad…however, it is hard not to be suspicious these days. As reported, it sounds like a warranted shooting. BUT…it’s a report from the cop’s POV.
Some will dispute this, but I’d posit in 99% of police actions doing what you’re instructed and raising your hands in the air means in the final analysis you’ll survive your encounter with the police. Yes, some people get shot doing just that. But running away, then finally stopping and groping around in your pants or jacket isn’t advisable. Stop. Raise your hands straight into the air. Keep them there. You’ll almost always live to tell about it later.