It's ALWAYS* a righteous shoot.
* unless there are multiple witnesses with video and the full glare of public exposure...
Maybe they mistook him for a dawg . . .
No charges? I’m shocked.
He should be hung.
Looks real enough and doesn’t have the orange muzzle tip that airsoft ones do. However, it’s not clear from the story what the imminent threat was. It didn’t mention he was pointing it at the officer or someone else.
Abuse of a corpse or bad headline?
“Deputy Erick Gelhaus, 48, fired multiple rounds in response to what he believed was an imminent threat of death, Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch announced at a news conference.”
This is NOT the standard by which a private citizen would be judged. It’s not enough that you believe there is an imminent threat, it must be a REASONABLE belief. In other words, a hypothetical “reasonable person” would also believe they were in danger in a similar situation.
Obviously that’s not the case here. A reasonable person would know that open carry is legal, and a reasonable person would also know that someone simply carrying a firearm is not necessarily threatening anyone. Otherwise we could shoot police officers on sight with no repercussions, if simply carrying their firearms constituted a threat.
The newest excuse of the Tyranny:
"It's complicated."
It's ALWAYS* a righteous shoot.
* unless there are multiple witnesses with video and the full glare of public exposure...
Why was the deputy there? Clearly, he was called. Someone else was concerned about the weapon this kid was carrying in a crap neighborhood. It is not mentioned in any article over the past several months why the deputy was called to the scene.
Things that were not printed in the paper; the kid was suspended from school; his parents are illegals; it is rumored he threatened a woman with the weapon and that is why the police were called. People will say what difference does this make? True enough, but in a story of another youth shot in Windsor the paper points out he was an “A” student, parents employed. Why is it relevant in one case and not another?
Easy to arm chair qb the thing. Gelhaus is an Iraq vet. He has seen plenty of the AKs. Now QB this; yu are an Iraq vet, you are told someone is threatening people in a toilet of a neighborhood with a weapon, you show up, you see a sizable male (He did not appear as a 13 year old at your vacation Bible camp) with a weapon who turns to face yu weapon in hand.
And for the open carry folks (I am a fan of open carry). There is a difference between a slung weapon in a rural environment and carrying openingly in NYC. There is a difference between farmer Brown in rural Iowa and a young MExican in gang colors with an AK in hand in a crap neighborhood in a well populated area where nearly every other house is a grow.
Look at the pictures; the weapon looks real enough to me. Look at the 4 year old kid punching a effigy of the deputy; the communty’s attitude is a combative one.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/topics/andy_lopez
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20140707/articles/140709709
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20140707/articles/140709706
pictures
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/gallery/gallery/20140707.707009996.html
lemme see, he had this AK-74 lookalike, with the orange tip removed, and he had a pistol likewise with the orange tip removed. sounds like a thug to me, trying to intimidate people with his ‘weapons’. where were his parents when he a) got the guns, and b) removed the orange tip. he purposely led people top think that they were real guns rather than toys. the cop was correct to have the impression that the kid wanted him to have - that they were real.
stupid kid paid the price for being ‘a tough guy’
Should have painted that pellet gun orange/Sarc.
Why would you shoot a dead boy? Waste of ammunition.
Protesters for Andy Lopez
Carrying a replica AK47 assault rifle down a street, after being warned by people in the area to put it down, was not a good decision. Turning toward a law enforcement officer with the weapon was another bad decision.
Removing the orange plugs off the ends of two airsoft guns (unlawful)
A juvenile out in public with airsoft BB guns (unlawful) Parents told Andy not to take the realistic guns out in public
Friends warned Andy not to walk down the street with the realistic looking guns.
There is No Statute of Limitations on MURDER, A new DA could file and convict tomorrow.
In related news, the parents of 13-year-old Andy Lopez will sue Gelhaus and Sonoma County in the death of their son. The federal civil rights lawsuit will be filed on Monday at the Federal District Court in San Francisco.
The lawsuit will allege that the shooting of Andy was unconstitutional in that it violated the Fourth Amendment’s limits on police authority.
Lopez had an AK-47 AND A Replica handgun in his waistband.
a neighbor told him the deputies were behind him, driving up to him and he needed to put the gun down..this before the sound of the siren and then the officer yelling twice to put the gun down. Tragic he didnt comply.
he recently transferred to program designed for behavior management
According to his father, he was expelled from Lawrence Cook Middle School in Santa Rosa. On Tuesday, he had been sent home early from his new alternative school, for what his parents described as lingering too long at a local store during a break.
More Than 1,000 Attend Andy Lopez Protest Rally in Santa Rosa
Some of us are too busy working to attend a ‘protest rally’ on a Tuesday in the middle of the day especially since some of these people are illegals.
Investigators say the hoodie-wearing teen didn’t comply with commands to drop the gun and was turning toward deputies while raising the barrel when he was shot seven
times.
Victor Manieri, 15, a freshman at Elsie Allen High School, left school early to join the march
Mitzi Reyes, 16, a junior at Elsie Allen, marched with her mother and two younger brothers.
KRON 4 reports that Santa Rosa school officials, as well as school district administrators and elected school board members, urged students to stay in class during the protest march.
It is illegal for a 13 year old to purchase, brandish or carry in public a replica gun.
The protesters, including middle- and high-school-age students and members of the Occupy movement, assembled in downtown Santa Rosa before marching through streets with signs and hooded sweatshirts bearing photos of the boy.
Andy Lopez slaying tops progressives’ meeting
shooting death of 13-year-old Andy Lopez surfaced throughout the meeting of the North Bay Organizing Project, which contains members from various local nonprofit, religious and activist groups
Teens and others have taken to the streets for at least five marches and rallies
North Bay Organizing Project president Leticia Romero said in her opening remarks that she wanted to recognize how the shooting of Lopez “is indicative of what’s not working in our society.”
Romero said. “We will no longer be spectators.”
At the podium, Sarris championed the tribe’s casino, slated to open to the public Tuesday, and the tribe’s growing influence in the community.
“To the public officials here today: You better listen. You better come to our side of town and listen because now I’ve got what you always had: It’s called money,” Sarris said.
Speakers delved into the Santa Rosa city schools effort, new this year, to address expulsion rates through restorative justice and on the efforts to improve bus service and other public transit concerns.
Thompson outlined his platform for immigration overhaul.
“What does justice look like? We hope people can start to be able to articulate that,” she said. “Is it money being funneled into parks? Is it money funneled to that community, into the schools?”
http://www.watchsonomacounty.com/2013/11/cities/andy-lopez-slaying-tops-progressives-meeting/
Well, I guess the deputy will be back on duty, very well rested from his long paid vacation (known to government employees as paid administrative leave).