Police in New York shoot and kill 13-year-old holding a pellet gun, authorities say
Police in New York shoot and kill 13-year-old holding a pellet gun, authorities say
An officer in upstate New York shot and killed a teen fleeing while pointing a replica gun, police said Saturday.
An officer in upstate New York shot and killed a teen fleeing while pointing a replica gun, police said Saturday.
Hey I'll give them some credit with that headline.
Not "13-year-old killed in police shooting" or "a 13-year old died during a police interaction" etc. Nope, they fully went with "Police in New York shoot and kill 13-year-old." Thank you, PBS.
Also -
The shooting happened Friday night after officers in Utica stopped two youths at around 10:18 p.m.
One of them fled and pointed what appeared to be a handgun at the officers, according to a statement by the Utica Police Department.
I'll be interested to see when that footage is released and what it contains.
The department said it is also aware of a video circulating on social media of the incident but warned that it does not portray the incident in its entirety.
I have a feeling the officially released footage might also not portray the incident in its entirety..
If it shows a kid running and pointing what appeared to be a handgun, then that'll be a pretty big part of the incident...
Watch it actually be 3 kids with Arizona Iced Teas and Skittles.
In a trench coat
"I'd rather kill 100 innocent kids than retreat from one dangerous criminal." /s
You misspelled "then".
Yeah, like what are the stats on 13 year olds actually shooting cops vs. just having toy guns? Like at some point you gotta realize it's probably not actually a threat and proceed more cautiously.
Fuck if it doesn't seem true.
"¿Por qué no los dos?" - Uvalde cops.
Shame he didn't have a school to hide in
It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
Yeah it stung me too lol
Fleeing, and pointing a pellet gun? Not sure I buy the story, based on that alone.
One of them fled and pointed what appeared to be a handgun at the officers, according to a statement by the Utica Police Department.
If the footage confirms this, it makes sense that the officer shot him. Don't point guns or gun replicas at people.
But they were fleeing and pointed a gun at him? Either the reporting is shitty or it did not happen like the police say it happened.
The bystander video is shown here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1188314849017274
Video shows three cops chasing a suspect. The first cop tackles the kid and proceeds to punch him. The second cop run up with gun drawn and shots the kid in less than a second while the first cop is still busy wrestling.
IMHO, the 2nd cop's shooting was incredibly unsafe since he was shooting a suspect wrestling another cop from less than 1 foot away. As far as I can tell, the cop basically ran up to the kid, put his gun to his head, and pulled the trigger. You can not tell from THIS video if there was a gun in the kids hand, but I can't believe the first cop would not have tackled him if there was! There is no way this is a good shooting.
Your link is broken BTW.
Thank you. It should be fixed now.
If the police were also armed with pellet guns, this never would have happened.
The only way to stop a bad guy with pellets is a good guy with pellets.
I should point out that pellet guns do not have a 'Day-Glo Safety Orange/Red' tip.
As they do eject actually harmful projectiles; they look much like other guns until you get close to them. Reasonable parenting would have included making sure the child understood that under no circumstances do you point that at people.
That doesn't make this less of a tragedy, but it does provide some context to the situation. Cops are, sadly, trained out of necessity not to try to discern when on the receiving end of any gun barrel. While it's difficult to expect a child to know not to point weapons at police; doing so is in fact dangerous.
You can't really trust the orange tip anyway, since criminals have been known to paint that on real guns to trick cops, with mixed success.
Regardless, from a police officer's perspective, you only have half a second to tell whether an object that someone is getting out of their pocket is a gun or something less harmful, like a cell phone. So it's understandable why they chose to shoot in this situation.
Of course, if it were harder for the general public to get guns, then police wouldn't be put in these situations where they have to make life-and-death decisions in under a second, but we have to live with the consequences of which rights we chose to value.
Right with ya, until...
if it were harder for the general public to get guns
Is there anywhere harder to get a gun? Even pellet guns are illegal in NYC. You can be legal in one state, passing through to another state where you're legal, and NY can take your ass to jail for a gun in the trunk.
So. More laws might help?
Outcome is unfortunate but pointing a gun, replica or not, at an officer has always been a very bad idea. Nothing is different now vs 30 years ago.
Do we as a society really need reminding don't point weapons at police? Don't do it folks.
Your flaw is that you're taking the police at their word. Why the fuck would a 13 year old point a pellet gun at the cops?
If I see footage that corroborates their story I'll believe it. Until then, I'm assuming the murderer is also a liar. ACAB
I haven't heard a statement from the other side of the story, but it seems you have. So please, inform us all. Otherwise, your speculation based in distrust and hate is moot.
We only have one source of facts at the moment, with a promise for a more detailed followup so, yeah, it carries weight.
I don't know why a 13yo would do such a thing, or why they even had a replica gun. I'm not them. I feel sorry for them, but according to the facts I know right now, it was a bad choice. I am especially interested if the red tip were removed designating a toy. As the article references a replica, not a toy, I wonder if that had some influence in the outcome.
I am fully prepared to change my view if new evidence persuades me.
Do we as a society really need reminding don’t point weapons at police? Don’t do it folks.
Do we need a reminder that kids aren't mini-adults, and they do stupid things sometimes? In any case, I'll believe he pointed it at them when I see a video of it.
Certain stupid activities have immediately fatal consequences, that’s life bro. The gun was a replica of a Glock 17, made specifically to look like the genuine article. If someone pointed one at me they’d be well on their way to room temp, and I likely wouldn’t even be charged, because yeah, I would have had every reason to assume I was in imminent danger.
Teach your kids to not be this stupid. A 13 year old in the city shouldn’t have unrestricted access to pellet gun, or any other weapon.
Yeah I can see that. I guess where I have an issue is that the old white guy who shot up a Planned Parenthood a few years back was taken alive (and he's far from the only example) and it's like, why is it that they can negotiate and talk guys like that down but don't bother to even attempt to de-escalate with brown kids? Or brown adults, really.
Kid was Asian. Police violence on Asians is comparable to caucasians
Police are allowed to point weapons at you and not expect return fire. It's not considered self defense if you return fire even if the police burst into your home in the middle of the night and don't announce themselves. 2nd amendment rights are simply an advertisement for the gun industry to sell more weapons and ammunition and has nothing to do with self defense especially from the state.
Actually Breonna Taylor's boyfriend was acquitted for firing at them as self-defense. In very specific situations and with suitably embarrassing incidents for the police you might be able to avoid having the entire weight of the justice system come down on you. Assuming you survive the encounter in the first place.
I think most people would agree and understand but can't we expect a bit of common sense from the police.
This death was unnecessary but legal under our laws.
Yeah provoking law enforcement is just plain stupid.
[response to comment posted incorrectly]
It sounds like you also meant to reply to a specific comment.
Yeah, woops, something got pooched. I replied to a comment in my messages and it wound up here.
Why does your comment assume people are going to downvote you? You don't even state an opinion. I downvoted it because it doesn't contribute anything to the conversation.