Boy with fake gun dies after being shot by US officer

[Precambrian]

A 12-year-old boy shot by police after apparently grabbing what turned out to be a replica gun has died from his wounds, a day after officers responded to an emergency call about someone waving a “probably fake†gun at a playground. A police officer on Sunday (Nov 23) fired twice after the boy pulled the fake weapon which was lacking the orange safety indicator usually found on the muzzle from his waistband but had not pointed it at police, Deputy Chief Ed Tomba said. The boy did not make any verbal threats but grabbed the replica handgun after being told to raise his hands, Mr Tomba said. “That’s when the officer fired,†he said. The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner identified the boy as Tamir Rice. An attorney for his family, Timothy Kucharski, said the boy went to the park with friends on Sunday, but he did not know the details of what led to the shooting. The police department is investigating the shooting and both officers involved have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard procedure. The county prosecutor’s office also is investigating. Mr Kucharski said he wants to talk to witnesses himself and get more facts. Police said the weapon was an “airsoft†type replica gun that resembled a semi-automatic handgun. The orange safety indicator had been removed, police said. A man who called police told emergency dispatchers before police arrived that the boy was on a swing set and pointing a pistol that was “probably fake†and scaring everyone. The caller said the boy was pulling the gun in and out of his pants. “I don’t know if it’s real or not,†the caller said. Jeff Follmer, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, said the officers were not told the caller thought the gun might be fake. The officer dispatched to the playground outside a city recreation centre saw the pistol sitting on a table or bench, and watched the boy grab it and put it in his waistband, Mr. Follmer said. http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/boy-with-fake-gun-dies-after-being-shot-by-us-officer/article6629587.ece?homepage=true Murica :facepalm:

[Precambrian]

http://www.smh.com.au/world/tamir-rice-not-a-boy-with-a-toy-in-a-park-but-a-black-male-with-a-gun-20141124-11sjut.html Washington: Tamir Rice, 12, was with his sister and a friend in a gazebo in a Cleveland park on Saturday when a rookie cop shot him in the chest. He was playing with a gun that fired plastic pellets, but looked dangerously real. Someone had called local police and reported seeing "a guy with a pistol, and it's probably fake… but he's pointing it everybody." According to early reports the two officers who responded – the rookie and a veteran – were not told that the caller had twice said he believed the gun to be a fake. In the last minutes before he was shot Tamir could not have known that he was now in grave danger. As though by magic a stranger had reached out and transformed him. He was no longer a boy with toy in a park but a black male with a gun. According to the police when the officers arrived on the scene they instructed Tamir to put his hands up. He reached for his gun and two shots were fired, they say. Tamir did not die until early on Sunday morning. Later on in the morning CNN was having a roundtable discussion about the tension in Ferguson, Missouri, where the community fears violence might break out should a grand jury decide not to lay charges against another cop who shot dead another unarmed young black man, Michael Williams. One of those on the CNN panel was Jim Wallis, a Christian social justice activist. There is no suggestion he had even heard of Tamir Rice when he spoke, but he could have been talking about him. "Every African American dad that I know has the talk with their son about how to deal with being in the presence of a white policeman with a gun," he said. "I am a white dad … I won't have that talk with my two white sons." It is not known what colour the Cleveland police were, though others have noted that the problem in America is not between young black men and white police, but young black men and police in general. Studies show African-Americans males are about as likely to smoke marijuana as whites, but four times more likely to be arrested for it. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, innocent New Yorkers were stopped and frisked by police four million times between 2002 and 2010, 90 per cent of them from minority communities. The impact on crime rates of the stop-and-frisk practice is contested. The fact that it has destroyed the relationship between police and minorities is not. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson could have been discussing Tamir last year when he wrote, "Our society considers young black men to be dangerous, interchangeable, expendable, guilty until proven innocent. "But black boys in this country are not allowed to be children. They are assumed to be men, and to be full of menace." He wasn't of course. He was writing about Trayvon Martin, a young black man who was followed home and then shot dead by the neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Zimmerman was not even arrested before six weeks of protests forced authorities' hands, and later he was found not guilty of committing any crime. And in considering Tamir's killing it is impossible not to think of the shooting of John Crawford, who in September picked up a pellet gun from the shelves of a Walmart store in Beavercreek, Ohio. Another customer called emergency services to say there was a man in the store waving a rifle about. Police arrived five minutes after the call and in seconds had shot him dead. Other witnesses – and video evidence – suggest that Crawford had simply been wandering the isles, chatting on his phone. Neither officer has been charged. Ohio is an open carry state. Even if Crawford had been carrying a loaded rifle, it would have been perfectly legal for him to do so, just as it is for the overwhelmingly white members of Open Carry Texas, who are commonly to be found hanging around in shopping centers armed with military-style semi-automatic rifles in celebration of their right to bear arms. None of them have yet been stopped by police, let alone shot. The sense among many African-Americans that the most dangerous part of their day will be when they inevitably cross paths with a police officer now runs deep. Some are scared, others are angry, many are determined to use the protests in Ferguson as a fulcrum for change. As the community waits to hear from the grand jury, US President Barack Obama, has called for calm. "This is a country that allows everybody to express their views. Allows them to peacefully assemble, to protest actions that they think are unjust. But using any event as an excuse for violence is contrary to rule of law and contrary to who we are," he told ABC News in an interview on Friday. He added that minorities who believe they are unfairly treated are sometime justified in that view. "Sometimes they are not." After Tamir died on Sunday a police union spokesman told the media: "We have to assume every gun is real. When we don't act, that's the day we don't come home." And this is a fair point for the representative of a public servant doing a dangerous job to make. But you can't help thinking that Tamir's family expected him home on Saturday afternoon, too.

[Precambrian]

Jeez what a **** place is this god forsaken country? Am so glad am nowhere near this place.

[veer]

Jeez what a **** place is this god forsaken country? Am so glad am nowhere near this place.

The country appreciates you for staying away..

[ZeroBlack]

...

[CommonMan]

The country appreciates you for staying away..

and nobody gives a shyte for that country's appreciation :finger: and what is that black thingy in your avatar ? :cantstop:

[vvvslaxman]

Racial profiling is real. People pretend to believe it doesn't exist based on Obama becoming a president. It is a deadly tragedy.

[veer]

and nobody gives a shyte for that country's appreciation :finger: and what is that black thingy in your avatar ? :cantstop:

Exactly my thought on his statement dumb dumb.. and hence the reply.. no one cares if someone stays away from the USA.. :--D:cantstop:

[JaFanatic]

and what is that black thingy in your avatar ? :cantstop:

Its a sign of showing regret towards the violation against women in our society, the pic was unanimously chosen by the ICFers