But it clearly wasn't real and it was a 12 year old and no-one got shot. Where does serve and protect mean shoot first just in case? Proper police practices doesn't mean screwing around, it means ...well I'll let you figure that out.
Thane
That is easy to say from your computer chair. Do you think you could be so sure if it was you making the 911 call to dispatch? If it were you in the park, would you have called the police?
Before drawing conclusions, it would be good to have some facts when investigated. Everything can always be done different, be it good or bad. Since neither of us was there we cannot say for sure. Your suggestion of using the PA is interesting, but we don't even know if that was an option.
What if it had been your kid? Don't just say he wouldn't have been allowed to do that. Kids pick up things and play with them, even things they're not meant to have. Would you he happy the police shot him for (mistakenly) playing with a toy gun? It seems a harsh penalty whether it was a mistake or not.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-police and not trying to change the world. I'm just a grandparent speaking to the evidence shown in a video.
Thane
I agreed with you, but I've changed my mind. The caller had been watching the guy for some time. He'd probably seen him within 10 feet several times but did not realize he was a boy.
The gun had a big bore, as if it had been manufactured more to scare people than to shoot at cans. The caller may have thought it was fake because the guy seemed to be playing.
The caller complained that he kept pulling the gun out and pointing it at people, scaring the shit out of them. The surveillance video showed him blocking the path of a pedestrian and pointing the gun at 3 feet, and continuing to point it as the pedestrian went around. Apparently it looked real enough that nobody dared interact with him.
The dispatcher didn't tell the cops it was "probably fake." I can see why. It wasn't known to be fake. Real or fake, the cops wanted to keep anyone from getting hurt.
The gun was in his waistband, hidden by his jacket, when police pulled in. I can see why they didn't stop at a distance. The guy was behaving irrationally. If they'd given him time, he might have escalated from scaring to shooting if the gun was as real as it looked. Besides, civilians might have walked into danger.
As the car stopped, the guy rushed at the passenger door, pulling up his jacket with his left hand and reaching to his waistband with his right. The camera produced approximately 1 frame per second. The guy had his jacket nearly a foot above his belt when there was smoke and he went down. The passenger cop opened his door and ran away, taking cover behind the car. The driver took cover behind the left fender. The guy's head came up, then went back down, out of sight.
I heard anguish in the cop's voice when he called for an ambulance. He described the victim as 20. He described the gun in detail, apparently unaware that it was not a firearm.
So you are facing someone you know is armed and see him pulling a gun. How long are YOU going to wait to shoot? Or are you one of those that think a cop shouldn't shoot at all until the opponent has fired one shot?
Harry K
Prove that please. So far, we don't even know exactly what the two cops saw, what they knew, what they were intending to do. And from the video, if the kid had stayed at the gazebo instead of moving
*toward* the police car, the outcome would likely have been very different.Also factor in that a civilian it's not tasked with responding to calls with guys pointing guns at people in public. Police are.
In the video I saw, if the kid had stayed where he was, at the gazebo, the distance would have been 30 feet or so. As the car rolls up, the kid is moving toward the car, greatly reducing the distance. He leaves the table seconds before the car comes into view, likely because he saw the police car coming. Why the kid headed in the direction he did, we don't know. Was that the direction to go home? Or maybe the police car was on a different path before the kid got up and started to move and he was initially moving away from where he thought the police car would go. There is still a lot here we don't know.
They didn't screw around. Apparently the one cop had a situation where he felt his life was threatened by a perp with a gun at a close distance and he defended himself, firing only one shot. He also didn't know the gun was fake, that it was a 12 yr old kid.
I won't just say he wouldn't be allowed to do that. But I would hope that in years of parenting, plus life experience, he would have known that he shouldn't do it. Kind of like teaching your kid how to swim, how not to go swimming where they shouldn't, etc. Yet some kids wind up going to a lake with no lifeguard, no one else around, and drowning.
Kids pick up things and play with them, even things
I wouldn't be happy. Anyone here say they are happy? But I also don't see these parents saying the cops shot their son down in cold blood either. It also wasn't administered as a penalty, anymore than the kid drowning in the lake example.
Also it was *not* a toy gun. According to the accounts I've heard, it was an airgun that shoots plastic pellets. Those kinds of guns can shoot a variety of projectiles, depending on what specific gun it was. Even the ones that shoot plastic projectiles can easily put out an eye. Ones that shoot pellets or BB's cause injury and can penetrate skin. A 12 year old pointing one at people walking down the street is dangerous. You want your eye taken out?
Do you not see in the video that the kid is the one that greatly closed the distance between himself and the police car. He was heading right toward it, not staying where he was or going in the other direction. Kind of like Ferguson in that regard. In this case, *now* everyone knows it was a 12 year old with a plastic pellet airgun.
You can tell it clearly wasn't exactly how? The orange end piece wasn't there.
It wasn't totally fake and harmless. It apparently was apparently an airgun that shoots plastic pellets. It can easily put your eye out.
I've thought about that part of it too. It would be interesting to know if the 911 dispatch people have any training, recommended procedures in that situation. In this case, if 911 dispatch had told the cops it was possibly a fake, it might have made a difference. But on the other hand, maybe the police have a policy of taking any threat with anything that might be a gun seriously and handling it the same way and not give the responding cops speculative info on what a weapon might or might not be.
Most of the distance near the end has been closed not by the police, but by the kid. He got up from the table under the gazebo and headed
*toward* where the cop car was going.
I didn't see that level of detail in the video I watched. You must have a better one? Have a link we can look at it?
It wasn't technically a firearm, it couldn't kill anyone. But it wasn't a harmless toy either. It was an airgun capable of putting an eye out.
It wasn't a toy. Apparently it was an air pistol, that shoots plastic pellets. It can't kill you, but it could easily put your eye out.
And I would argue that someone walking around in a public park waving a gun in the air is quite irrational. No one can predict what irrational thing they'll do next.
For all practical purposes, a 12-year-old with a gun is just as dangerous as an 18-year-old with a gun.
If someone is walking around a public park waving a gun in the air, I fully support the police taking them out.
In my opinion, the kid's behavior makes me believe he was just a worthless hooligan. The world is now a safer place for *all* of us law-abiding citizens.
Just think. Now the community won't have to pay for the arrests, welfare, drug rehab, juvie programs, incarceration, and all the second generation babies who he might have left behind.
All of this brought to you by liberal elected reps who drive fathers out of the house, and reward immorality and fornication.
- . Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus
Win-win situation! :-)
I downloaded it from CNN and played it at 1/4 speed, to study each frame. The original was 2 frames per second. Slow motion gave me two seconds to look at each frame.
I see the kid's right elbow was out to the side and rising. I'd say he was drawing, and his muzzle was just clearing his waistband when he was shot. Like a western movie.
The cop ran away instead of continuing to shoot. Clearly, he wasn't trigger happy.
Even if it were styrofoam, it was a convincing enough imitation to put a reasonable person in fear for his life. "But when I scared the cop down at 34th and Vine, he broke my little bottle of Assault Potion #9."
That's correct.
I posted a link a while back about a friend of mine who owns a bar. He was held up at gun point so he drew his Glock and killed one of the would-be robbers.
It later turned out to be a BB rifle ...but a split second decision in a dark bar would not have been sufficient to have known that.
If someone pulls a gun on you, you certainly have the right to blow them away. No charges were filed against my friend. One of the would-be robbers who got away was arrested a few weeks later for a robbery and he had a real gun
/sarcasm/
...and of course a criminal would never put a red marking at the end of his real weapon to make it appear to be a toy...that would be illegal I bet.
I've seen the videos a number of times. I don't know if they have audio, but I know that neighborhood, and a policeman was shot and killed a few years ago, so I think that when you are told that someone is acting around with a gun (the police weren't told it was a replica, and from the pictures, it looks real) they approach thinking it is a dangerous situation, both for them and the other people in the park. So when they approached and the boy pulled out his gun, I think almost anyone would have shot him. What bothers me is no one is asking how the child got the gun and why he was in the park in the dark. Perhaps they are looking into that and it just hasn't made the news. It strikes me that anyone who would give a young child a replica weapon, and let him run around the park with it, should be considered the one who caused this death.
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