The article says that witnesses have stated that Gelhaus fired his weapon before the boy had time to figure out what was happening. Is anyone carrying a rifle out of doors who turns toward an officer now subject to be shot immediately?
“He shot a 13-year-old kid who was doing what a kid is expected to do,” Casillas said. “This isn't a hardened criminal. This is a 13-year-old kid. You call out to him, what is he going to do? He's going to turn around.”
In the interests of full disclosure, the BB gun in question was completely indistinguishable from a Russian Kalashnikov AK -47.
And not only did the “BB gun” look indistinguishable form a real AK - 47, it did not look like a standard, potentially legal AK-47
The AK-47 look alike BB gun had been modified by someone who had sawed the barrel off to 12 inches long to make it look exactly like a sawed off AK-47 gang banger street zip gun with a similarly illegal (under California's insane gun laws) evil “High Capacity Magazine”.
Possession of a rifle with a sawed off barrel less than 16 inches long is a violation of the National Firearms Act of 1934 and is a Federal Felony carrying a mandatory 10 year sentence in Federal Prison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act
Sawing the barrel down also removes the front sights so the only real use for such a weapon is extreme close range shooting of the type you see in a gang land execution style hit.
Such AK-47s are a status symbol in California gang culture, especially in the Northern California's Mexican gangs who are running the illegal pot growing industry where they are used to protect the illegal marijuana fields .
What the officer saw when he drove up was _
A) A guy dressed in a gang style hoodie with the hood up to conceal his face(no way the officer could tell the kid was 13 because he was wearing a hoodie with the hood up)
B) Said person with hoodie up in the fashion Gang Bangers to conceal their identities when committing crimes, was openly carrying a gangster style street zip gun AK -47 with a crudely sawed off 12 inch barrel, which if the gun had been a real unregistered sawed off AK-47 would have put the guy in Club Fed for a mandatory 10 years
C) In the officers mind, the scenario above would have immediately registered in the officers mind was he was dealing with gang or drug related execution style hit or home invasion in progress.
The fact that the barrel had been sawed off the faux AK-47 suggests it was intentionally altered to look like a gang banger zip gun, especially since the removal of the front sight rendered the BB gun worthless for target practice, plinking, squirrel shooting and all the other uses boys have for BB guns.
There is also evidence to suggest that the kid was gang banger wannabe who was intentionally impersonating a gang banger with a zip gun to play “bad boy” in an areas where gang related violence a day to day occurrence.
<>”The boy turned and the muzzle of his BB gun raised toward the deputy, according to police.<>
And that’s not even what Santa Rosa police Lieutenant Paul Henry told the newspaper earlier.
The Lieutenant said that the kid “was turning toward the deputies while raising the barrel.”
“while raising the barrel”.
That’s present participle versus past tense.