Black man cosplaying shot in the back multiple times after repotedly running away from police. - Faith Cleaver period 4

                               Fair warning, this may be the nerdiest post so far.
  
If you are not familiar with the joy that is cosplaying, then allow me to explain so that the rest of this story makes a bit more sense. Cosplaying is the activity of dressing up as your favorite anime/manga, video game, comic book, TV show, or any other character you can think of. It's usually done for conventions or gatherings of other like minded, die hard fans of the same thing but can also be done at any time just for fun.
  On September 10th however, cosplaying went from a harmless activity to a deadly shooting when 22 year old Darrien Hunt was outside a Panda Express in Saratoga Springs, Utah and was shot and killed by a police officer. It was possible that Darrien was cosplaying popular anime character Mugen (pictured above,)  from hit series Samurai Champloo. Mugen's outfit includes a large samurai sword which he carries on his back which police say Darrien threatened them with. The sword however was a replica Katana with a blunted edge which is normal since events such as conventions do not allow real weapons or even blunt objects such as pipes or hammers to be permitted (I was almost kicked out by weapons police this passing summer for my green bat that I was carrying.)
Police were responding to a call that had reported a "Suspicious individual," at the restaurant. Upon arrival the officers in question say that Darrien lunged at them with the sword when approached and that's why they fired. However, according to a private autopsy conducted, Darrien had multiple gunshot wounds on his back and many witnesses say that he was running away from police when he was shot multiple times. This has obviously stirred up plenty of controversy, especially in the wake of another recent shooting in Dayton, Ohio where a black man was shot by police while he was holding a packaged toy gun in walmart.
Authorities are finding the idea that Hunt was cosplaying skeptical because his clothes did not match Mugen's outfit completely, and that any similarities were completely coincidental. But come on. It's cosplay. Variations are completely up to the cosplayer and are rarely exactly like the character which is part of the fun of it. Officials have also tried to justify the shooting by saying that the sword was a real, 3 foot long, steel sword and not the "Harmless, 3 foot long, souvenir sword," that Hunt's family described it as. Even with that Knowledge, replica swords that look extremely real are easy to acquire, especially at places like anime conventions where they often have two or three booths that sell them for relatively low prices.
Utah has an open- carry law which allows real knives and guns to be openly carried on your person with a permit and not be bothered. With this in mind, Hunt was openly carrying a toy weapon when he was shot without much questioning as it would seem. This, for obvious reasons, has quickly become a racially charged case. Hunt's mother Susan stated that, "No white boy with a little sword would they shoot while he's running away," which is a statement that is not easy to overlook in a city that has a demographic of 93% white. Unlike in places in Ferguson where the population is 2/3 % black.
What are your thoughts on this shooting? Take a look at this image and decide for yourself whether or not he was cosplaying and leave your opinion in the comments.
https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/511559826703650817/photo/1
I agree that it was far off, but many cosplays go off nothing but color schemes just for lack of time, money, or genuine lack of effort which is very common in cosplay. This incident hit a little too close to home with me as a cosplayer and I feel that after this I have to be wary in some way when doing it in the future. Especially considering that me and a friend had been planning to do a cosplay of Mugen and his acquaintance Jin (who carries two swords on his hip) at upcoming conventions for the past few months.
Taking all of this into consideration the question still remains, was this shooting warranted or not?


http://www.dailydot.com/news/darrien-hunt-shot-by-police-while-cosplaying/
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-utah-police-shooting-20140914-story.html
Various other sources that I lost the links to.