“This is not a case where some low life thug was terrorizing or engaging in criminal behavior, this was a boy playing with a toy gun who got killed by police for doing what kids do.”
I have umarex co2 bb guns to practice. They are essentially replica guns, one a walther ppq, one a glock and the other a browning Hi power. They all look exactly like their real gun counterparts except they use co2 and fire bbs. They are indistinguishable from their real counterparts. If you pointed one of these at a police officer, they like everyone else would think it a real firearm. If you point one of the ‘toys’ at an officer you should count on being shot.
This may have been a boy playing with a toy, but his parents failed horridly and utterly at educating their son regarding his ‘toy’. My sons were taught gun safety rules for their bb guns and airsoft. They would not go through a public park menacing others pointing them at others for fun. They would obey police commands and would not point their “toy” at police.
The gun was in his pants when he was shot, he was shot in 2 seconds, to claim the lifelikeness of the gun was a major component is dubious at best.
Even the person who called the cops originally state to the operator that she believe the gun was a toy.
Your sons may have been taught lots of things, but I guarantee you, unless you are in complete denial that your children did things against your teaching and training when you were not around. I have worked with kids in various ways my entire life, and I routinely see them doing things I know their parents teach them not to do, and I know they know not to do.. if you think children always do what they are taught and told, you really don’t know much about kids.
I don’t care how well taught a child is, if you take a child, and have a car pull up and slam on its brakes feet from you, and have 2 adult cops get out guns drawn and screaming at that child, they are not going to react like you taught them, 2 seconds after this happens this child has a bullet in its stomach and is dead within 24 hours.
To try to write this off as its the child’s fault, or the parents fault, is mindless blame the victim. I can tell you if you put any child in a situation like what happened to this kid, a cop car pulling just feed from him, and two cops pointing guns at him and shouting at him, in those first 2 seconds he’s not likely to be on the ground as they are directing him, they are going to have no idea how to handle that no matter how well trained they are.
Have some adults on here really forgotten what it is to be a kid? Even their own experiences? No way a 12 year old is going to process a car screeching up just feet away from them with adults screaming at them and just comply within in 2 seconds, most adults can’t even manage that.
And for the record, the kid never pointed anything at the police, the “gun” was in his pants when he was shot, so get the facts right. The kid never got the gun out of his pants, the cops shot him. So please stop with that nonsense.