Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Another Stupid Kid Shot...Great Timing

first off, I'm not going to approach the situation as those being my only 2 options. If I can't diffuse a kid holding a bb gun without shooting him or losing an eye, then maybe its time to re-evaluate how effective I am at my job.

There's the answer.

The media can't help but slant the reporting can they?

"boy with a toy gun"

Honestly, what cop shoots a boy with a toy gun, knowing that it's a boy with a toy gun? Ridiculous, inflammatory reporting.

lol That's about what I thought.

my younger brother spent 4 hrs on the operating table after getting shot with a bb gun, if it had hit him in a vital spot it would of killed him.

Same thing happened to Sgt. Powell.

But he went on to have a successful career and played a significant role in the saving of the Nakatomi Tower.




Travis

One can only hope the cop was black and was using a muzzleloader...

This discussion about whether a BB gun is lethal is totally off track.

I have no doubt that the officer did not recognize it as a BB pistol.

I'm thinking about the videos you see with LEO standing in front of a screen showing all manners of threats and where they have to make a split second decision that will mean the difference between going home that day or not.

I can understand how a tragedy like this happens but I also understand that a LEO has to take extraordinary caution to stay alive in the hood. Seconds matter.

The dispatcher should have relayed that the caller thought it was a toy gun. That might have made a difference. The idiot kid should have complied with the officer's commands.

Was the officer too quick on the draw?

Nope. Not when the suspect doesn't follow the officer's commands and goes for his "weapon".

This thread has deteriorated into an armchair dissection of a tragic event LONG afterwards and with alleged facts not known at the time.

The officer responded to a report of a person waving a gun. (Note: not a noise complaint, not a missing bicycle - a person making threatening moves with a gun.)

He arrives and finds a man who ignores the officer's commands and lifts his shirt, revealing a gun butt.

That is ALL he knows at that instant.

Everything else - the man's age, whether the gun is real or not, whether a BB gun is a gun or not, what the original caller said, what the dispatcher didn't say, or why the man has ignored the officer's commands - cannot be known at that instant. And that instant is all the time the officer may have.

I disagree with one point, fish head. The dispatcher was entirely correct in not saying the gun was "probably a toy." That was what the 911 caller said, but what if the 911 caller was wrong? Expecting a kid with a toy (and thus having your guard down a bit) but finding a gangbanger with a real gun instead could easily get an officer killed.

There are 12-yo gangbangers with real guns. They can and do set out to kill people - and cops. That MUST be in every officer's mind when he responds to a "man with a gun" dispatch.

Crap, and I only have my 1911 in my truck today for my ride home. I should have swapped it for my 21....

You guys sure know how to derail a perfectly good troll trap.

"Troll Derailer." Hey, I like that!

12 year old kids should hit the deck with arms up when LEO hollers at them to do so. It would be interesting to know if the kid had decided to divest himself of the gun.

is that what offering an alternative opinion is now? trolling?

If somebody I didn't know who was old enough to pull a trigger pointed that at me, I would be in fear for my life. Cop did the right thing.

Depends how dumb it is.

If that's a BB gun, what's with the hole in the end of the barrel being so large and what's with the magazine????

the fox 8 news had it labeled as the bb gun recovered from the scene.

I'm curious as well.

anyone with a history on this board realizes there is no shortage of dumb on here - or misplaced righteousness

but then again: