What nobody is mentioning is that the age of the theif is totally irrelevant here. There is no way that the police officer could have know his age before hand. He was plenty big enough to be an adult, plenty big enough to kill people.
Under the law, what is reasonable depends on what you know at the time of the incident, not what was found out afterward!
Yes, this was tragic, but it sounds like a justifiable shooting to me, given what was in the officers mind at the time.
Agreed. Stealing a vehicle is for all intents and purposes a crime of violence. We aren't talking candy bars from the local 7-11. What's next, him carjacking someone at gunpoint and killing somebodies pregnant wife?