When will it end?
A 12-year-old boy, Tamir Rice, was gunned down by Police in Cleveland, OH, while playing with a toy gun.
According to various reports, Rice was at the playground aiming the toy gun at people and playing around with it, when someone called 911 and reported a kid was playing with a gun.
The 911-caller also said that the gun was probably fake.
Two policemen were dispatched and confronted the child, asked him to put his hands in the air, but he instead reached for the gun and they shot at him twice – killing him.
He did not threaten or point the gun at the officers.
Police said officers responded to a report of a person waving a gun around at a playground and that Tamir was shot after he allegedly refused to put his hands up and reached in his waistband for what appeared to be a handgun. The handgun turned out to be an “airsoft” replica toy gun, which shoots pellets in a similar way that a BB gun does. Cleveland police said in a statement that an orange marking designed to make the toys distinguishable from real firearms had been removed.
A man who called 911 told dispatchers the boy was on a swing set and pointing a pistol that was “probably fake” and scaring everyone — but officers weren’t told the caller thought the gun might not be real, the president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association told The Associated Press.
Tamir’s father, Gregory Henderson, questioned why police chose to open fire instead of use a stun gun on his son. “Why not tase him? You shot him twice, not once, and at the end of the day you all don’t shoot for the legs, you shoot for the upper body,” Henderson told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Tamir — who was shot in the torso — died of his wounds on Sunday morning.
Both officers have been placed on leave, while a grand jury will investigate and decide whether or not to press charges.
There has to be a better way to diffuse potentially dangerous situations involving minors than deadly force.
R.I.P to Tamir. There has to be a better way….
