Cleveland police officer shoots 12-year-old boy carrying BB gun

Cleveland.com ^ | 11/22/2014 | Cory Shaffer | Northeast Ohio Media Group

[familyop]

Some of us remember times and places, too, where a boy seen with a real firearm in public was not often a problem. If it was a BB gun, why weren’t all people in the vicinity made aware of that by those near the boy? Or were they? Was the boy the only person in the vicinity, when police arrived? How were bystanders acting, when police arrived? Were they acting fearful or calm about the boy’s presence? Were they laying on the ground or running away from the boy?

Concerning such incidents in general, it’s not a problem that police can solve by themselves, IMO. For several decades, we’ve passed the laws to “stop” various kinds of violence. Has the effort worked? Is there something else that we should be doing?

[Pollster1]

But I say he was a child acting stupidly . . . You can bet the cops had a good bead on him with two hands, while the kid didn’t. That was an execution.

Relative skills after the fact are not the deciding factor on whether this was an "execution". Given what the cop saw and the potential danger of a real firearm, when the cop had been told there was a firearm, I'm okay with shooting. It's a shame the kid made bad decisions, but the cop could not bet his own life or the lives of others on the kid's innocence or ineptness. BTW, I've been to the range six times in the last week, and one-handed or two-handed I hit the black ten out of ten times (easily). My kids could all do the same at age 12.

[Pollster1]

Those are important questions. I have had the cops called on me when I was armed, and I was exceptionally careful to avoid misunderstandings. Were the other people there thugs? Scared? We don’t know. We don’t have all the facts, but the facts we have do not seem to indicate an overreaction by the cop who shot. If there is more to learn, I am willing to listen.