Oh no, this one's in Ohio, Officer shoots 12 yr old who pulled airsoft gun...

We'll see how this turns out....

Police: Video of officer shooting boy is 'clear'

Sad for this to happen, but in a split second, you have to make a decision on whether you go home to your family alive or the identify your body....

 

What ever happened to all plastic weapons requiring orange paint on the end of the barrel?

You're exactly right though Doug. These guys are constantly forced into situations where only 1 person is going home. Unfortunately, a 12 year old is not.

 

I thought it was a pellet gun..

 

I'm all for the bright orange tips on all bb or pellet - air soft guns. This can and should be prevented.

My son has a pellet gun that could be very easily mistaken for the real thing but it doesn't leave our house.

 

I think that only pertains to air soft at this point.

This article jumps back and forth from pellet to air soft. Not sure which one it was.

 

Where was mom or dad, who bought the gun? Any supervision at all?

 

Yeah kind of a sad situation. Apparently whoever called 911 said to the operator that the gun is "probably fake" but the operator didn't relay that to the responding officers ( which she probably should have ) and the cops gave the boy multiple warnings to drop the "weapon" and he did not. Can't really blame the officers, but at the same time it's a very sad situation. Serious question...do cops not carry stun guns anymore? Don't those shoot like up to 50 feet?

 

I'll start with I've worked the streets and now work in a jail. Here are some things to think about....

Just because the caller says "it's probably a fake" doesn't mean it's fake. What if he's wrong? If the dispatchers decided to tell the responding officer that's what the caller said, are they gonna console my wife and kids if they are wrong? Known information is given to responding officers, not all the "what ifs". Maybe doesn't matter when you are responding to a call of a person with a gun. Officers have fractions of a second to choose to live or die in this situation. Not the 10-15 seconds we had to look at it in the cardboard box. You decide if it's real or not when it's getting pulled out of a waist band and possibly pointed at you.

It's really easy to paint the orange end of anything black to make it look more real. Kids do this all the time not thinking what the ramifications might be.

Yes we carry Taser's. Yes they work, trust me, I know first hand. Pulling a Taser, or stun gun as some call them, is like pulling a knife when someone has a gun pointed at you; pointless unless you want to die. No they don't shoot up to 50 feet. The max range is about 27 feet if I remember correctly. They also have a tendency to make you clench when the electricity pulses through your body. Not what you want to happen when someone is holding a gun.

Remember what I said at the beginning; here's some stuff to think about? Process all of that in less than a second while you are telling someone to show you their hands and choosing to live, or die.

I do have sympathy for the child, his family and the officer that shot him. Remember the officer has to go on living knowing it was a 12 year old with a BB gun. This is a very unfortunate event that could have been avoided. Parents now a days are letting their children have too much responsibility and not enough supervision.

 

One of the earlier articles I read on this quoted the police chief/captain saying it was an air soft gun and the orange tip had been removed.

 

Good post. Agree 100%.

And ...... simply could have been avoided and not in the news IF "dropped the gun". Very simple.

 

He was 12. Rational decisions aren't always made by 12 year olds.(especially when they have a gun pointed at them) He might have been confused or scared and really didn't know what to do or how to grant the officers request.

Not excusing, just another piece of a horrific puzzle.

 

I saw the video of the incident, and this was just handled horribly by the cop driving the vehicle, not the one who fired the shots.
They come flying up and stop 5 feet in front of a possible "man with a gun", putting the cop in the passenger side in a situation where he felt he had no choice.
If this was a shooter with bad intentions, they would both be dead.

 

FEB I completely agree. Terrible officer safety. Were any kids in immediate danger? How about park where the bad guy can't see you, get out a long gun out from behind cover, and start giving commands from say a distance of 40-50 yds.

That being said, the kid should have dropped the gun when ordered.

 

Are you going to hedge your bets on whether a gun is FAKE or not if you are a police officer and someone pulls it out as you tell them to freeze??? Think fast, your family may never see you again and it's not a mistake that you can LIVE with.... NO Stun guns don't shoot 50 feet, and a stun gun is no match for a real gun either... I think Brett's idea of setting up with a longgun and giving directives from a distance is probably the best way to manage such a situation, but hindsight is also 20/20....

20yrs ago, a local deputy when to a crime scene and when trying to apprehend a suspect who'd gotten caught in the act of a B&E, he failed to pull his weapon soon enough and that suspect got on him and took his weapon from him and killed him, leaving a young son, daughter, and wife behind. The murderer/thief plead guilty and is serving a 50yr sentence, but that family never got their dad/husband back.... Unfortunately this situation gets blamed on the cops, when the REAL problem is the deceased and his poor choices and poor guidance he'd received in his short life that may well have lead to his death. Not unlike the situation in Missouri, it's another preventable situation if the DECEASED had made better choices to begin with.

 

Situation handled poorly by the guys doing the shooting, but doesn't necessarily make the shooting itself wrong.

Seems like verbatim what I posted about the Trayvon Martin incident.


Horrible situation though.

 

As a LEO I get notifications all the time in regards to officer safety issues. Here's a picture of one I got today, a shotgun made to look like a water cannon. Keep in mind I may have only a split second to decide if I'm going home that night or not.

 

Now that's scary

 

That's news worthy.

 

That's a hell of alot scarier than an "assault rifle" for sure.

 

I'm no law officer but if I believe someone is pulling a gun on me my last response would be to fire a less then lethal "stun gun" back at them. If life is ok the like I'm shooting to kill everytime period.


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