Cleveland police kill 12-year-old boy wielding BB gun that looked like a semi-automatic pistol
A 12-year-old boy said to have been waving a fake semi-automatic pistol in an Ohio playground dies after he was shot by police. (Reuters)
On Saturday afternoon, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was sitting on swing outside a recreation center in Cleveland, wearing a camouflage hat and hiding a BB gun in his waistband.
The boy was playing with the gun on the playground at Cudell Recreation Center, pulling it from his pants and pointing it at people, a man told a 911 dispatcher. The toy�s orange safety tip had apparently been removed, and the caller said the boy was �scaring the s� out of everyone.� He also noted that the boy was �probably a juvenile� and that the gun was �probably fake,� but that message was reportedly never relayed to police.
When two Cleveland police officers arrived at the scene, a rookie officer saw the boy beneath a gazebo, picking up the gun and tucking it into his waistband. Police said the officer ordered him to raise his hands, but he raised his shirt instead � reaching for the gun. The officer fired twice. One shot hit the boy in the stomach.
Rice was rushed to MetroHealth Medical Center and early Sunday died from his injuries, according to the medical examiner.
No agency seems to be keeping track of how often this sort of thing happens, but a simple Google search shows that it�s a problem. How are police officers supposed to determine in a split second that a realistic-looking weapon isn�t real, or that the person wielding it is a kid?
�The officer had no clue he was a 12-year-old,� Cleveland Police Patrolmen�s Association president Jeff Follmer told WKYC-TV. �He had no clue it was a toy gun, he was kind of shocked. He was concentrating more on the hands than on the age. It�s not, Go shoot a 12-year-old with a good fake gun.� It�s not that scenario at all. This is a compassionate officer.�
He told the Plain Dealer: �We have to assume every gun is real. When we don�t, that�s the day we don�t go home.�
�You have to look at this in the context that this is a 12-year-old boy, not a 35-year-old man with a criminal history,� the family�s attorney Timothy Kucharski told the Plain Dealer. �You can�t expect adult reactions out of children.�
Gregory Henderson, a family friend, said Tamir was tall for his age. He liked basketball. He was artistic and smart. He was a well-mannered kid.
�That�s my superhero,� Henderson told WKYC-TV. �Who would�ve thought he would go so soon? He had his whole life ahead. To be 12 years old, he doesn�t know what he�s doing. Police they know what they�re doing.�
Tamir had been playing at the park with his sister and a friend when he was confronted by police. He never shouted or verbally threatened the officers. He never pointed the gun at them. But he did reach for it, police said.
Authorities said the BB gun resembled a semiautomatic handgun. An orange safety marker, intended to identify a toy gun, had been removed, police said. It wasn�t until after the weapon was recovered that investigators determined it was a BB gun.
�Tragedies happen when you rush ahead of the facts,� Kucharski told the newspaper.
The killing comes at a contentious time, as the country waits for a grand jury decision that will determine whether police officer Darren Wilson will face criminal charges for fatally shooting unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown. In the weeks following the August shooting, people flooded the streets in Ferguson, Mo., calling the killing an issue of race.
However, Kucharski said race wasn�t the issue in Saturday�s shooting.
�This is not a black-and-white issue. This is a right-and-wrong issue. This is not a racial issue. This is about people doing their jobs the right way,� he told WOIO-TV.
The U.S. Justice Department has been investigating Cleveland police for several years for use of excessive force, according to the Associated Press.
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