12-Year-Old With Air Gun Dies In Cleveland Police Shooting

WIBW-TV / CNN ^ | November 23, 2014 | Michael Pearson, Ronni Berke and Brad Pechanec

[2ndDivisionVet]

A Cleveland police officer responding to a call about a person with a gun fatally wounded a 12-year-old boy brandishing what turned out to be an air gun that looked very much like a real firearm, police said early Sunday.

The shooting Saturday afternoon came as the nation nervously awaited a grand jury decision on whether to charge the police officer who killed African-American teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August.

The attorney for the family of the Cleveland youngster, who also was black, downplayed any possible racial connotations to the shooting.

"This is not a black and white issue. This is a right and wrong issue," attorney Tim Kucharski said.

Police were summoned to the scene outside a recreation center by a 911 caller who said someone -- possibly a juvenile -- was pointing a gun at people.

"There's a guy in there with a pistol, you know, it's probably fake, but he's like pointing it at everybody," the caller said, according to audio provided by CNN affiliate WEWS....

[dp0622]

at 12? conservative doesn’t have to mean not having a heart. comments like that make it hard to like us.

[Paladin2]

What are the details about the kids parental units?

Sounds like poor parental edumacation of offspring.

Bammy's fault.

[ClearCase_guy]

I can see you weren’t in Nam. Twelve year old’s can certainly kill you.

You've expressed the prevailing attitude perfectly -- the government is an occupying force, and they see US citizens as Viet Cong.

Of course the cops want to shoot us.

[Half Vast Conspiracy]

Nam? You’re funny.

[gogeo]

nobody deserves to die for carrying a BB gun...

Hmmm...I've carried BB guns before, and never been killed.

Is it possible there were other factors involved?

[fini]

Unfortunately a lot of real guns look like fake guns, e.g. look at a Hi-Point. And a lot of BB guns look like real guns. When I was a kid, 40 years ago, I had a BB gun that looked just like a 1911, unless you looked carefully at the end of the barrel.

Also kids are now killing people, so it really is hard to tell what is going on.

Also people do stupid stuff. A neighbor of mine has an AR15 and he painted the flash suppressor neon red, just like an air-soft rifle. He thought it was real funny until the rest of us piled on and treated him like the jerk he was acting like.

[grania]

nobody deserves to die for carrying a bb gun

Wait for the facts. What's emerging from the local TV news is that what happened is horrible but understandable.

Students in Cleveland schools know better. They've all been through classroom sessions with gang unit police. They go through metal detectors and have the book bags checked every day when they go to school. If the child was pointing the gun at people and the band identifying it as fake was removed, one has to wonder about his intent.

[bonfire]

Looked up his mother this morning. Scum.

[null and void]

JBT Ping list

The training worked exactly like it was supposed to!

[Paladin2]

Well, THAT's a surprise...

Who'da guessed?

[matt04]

exactly. The orange cap was removed and it would appear the kid was drawing a real firearm. Chances are the kid probably had his finger on the trigger when he pulled it out of his waistband as well.

[JohnBrowdie]

single parent household, I’m sure. poor kid didn’t have a chance before he was even born. no one taught him that pointing even an air gun at a cop would get you shot.

[null and void]

Worth repeating:

You've expressed the prevailing attitude perfectly -- the government is an occupying force, and they see US citizens as Viet Cong.

Of course the cops want to shoot us.

[onedoug]

Thanks for your service.

[Oztrich Boy]

It was worse than a crime, it was a blunder. Said by Talleyrand

[MikeinMotley]

was the kid in walamrt? concerned citizen + 911 + bb gun = graveyard here lately...wasn`t the walmart bb gun = dead guy incident in Cleveland also?

Mike

[2ndDivisionVet]

No, it was some kind of community recreation center or something.

[Paleo Conservative]

Tomba showed reporters the weapon -- a large, black BB- or pellet-type replica gun resembling a semiautomatic pistol. An orange tip indicating the gun was an air gun had been removed, police said.

So what's to keep a criminal from putting some orange paint on the muzzle of a real handgun to make police think it's just a BB or pellet gun?

[Klemper]

Wait until some asshole paints the tip of his 40 caliber, orange.....

[cynwoody]

The deceased:

According to Fox8 Cleveland:

One 911 caller said the suspect was “probably a juvenile” and that the gun was “probably a fake.”

*Listen to 911 call here*

When two officers arrived, they found the boy and ordered him to raise his hands. He did not comply with the officers’ orders and reached into his waistband, according to police. Shots were fired, and he was hit in the torso.