On Saturday in Cleveland, Ohio, a 12-year-old boy carrying a pellet gun was shot and killed by a police officer for "appearing to be pulling a gun in and out of his pants". Officers went to the area to respond to a 911 call about a male with a gun, who apparently said in the call that the gun was "probably fake". Police say that Tamir Rice, the "male with the gun", had an airsoft gun that appeared to be indestinguishable from a real firearm. Authorities also say that the boy was told to raise his hands and was shot when he pulled the pellet gun from his wasitband.
Although the pellet gun the young boy was carrying could have looked very close to a real gun, I still think it is very wrong of the officer to have shot the boy in such a short amount of time, especially while he was so young. What's even worse is that the officer was no more than 10 feet away, so there is almost no excuse for the reasoning behind shooting the boy. I hope that the officers involved with this case take the death of young Tamir Rice into consideration the next time they are responding to a call.
Link: http://news.yahoo.com/probe-begins-fatal-shooting-boy-officer-065908018.html
With this and the conflicts in Ferguson, police forces should only shoot if it's the last option.
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