What A Tragic Ending.

[youngmafbog]

http://news.sky.com/story/1379087/police-shoot-dead-12-year-old-holding-fake-gun

But what can the Police do, if someone reaches for a gun (and it certainly looks like one) they can't stand there and be shot first.

[Baldric]

Guess at 12 he was playing 'Cops and Robbers' . . . Tragic!

[marval]

That is tragic, but how can they be sure if it real or not.

[Mamyalynne]

Dreadful outcome - let's hope the Bill to have all these types of guns brightly coloured gets put through, if indeed they need to be on sale at all.

[wolf63]

As you say - a sad and tragic end to such a young boy. I can't even start to imagine the pain that his family and the police officer are going through.

[BlackadderV]

When I was a kid nearly every boy had a pop gun, fired with percussion caps. Anyone remember spud guns?

[Hypognosis]

Never saw that scenario ever playing out, for real.


/sarcasm

[New Judge]

No win sitruation for the police. If the miscreant had been allowed to shoot somebody dead andsubsequently been sentenced to 99 years that would have been their fault too for failing to prevent his crime.

There is much mention in the report about the caller saying that the gun was "probably fake". Whether or not that was conveyed to the officers is neither here nor there. Firstly the caller was in no position to make such a judgement and secondly if somebody had pointed that weapon at me after being told to raise their hands I, too, might have got my retaliation in first.

[Old_Geezer]

Parents should not let their child get themselves into that position.

The cops are never going to know a gun isn't real before a close inspection so this is a tragedy that was waiting to happen.

That stated, I do not have enough experience of such situations to know if a warning shot was a possibility.

Of course, it's been said many times before, but the chances of this are greatly reduced if folk have an obligation not to be armed rather than a right to be so.

[RandyMarsh]

I guess the police had no choice but to shoot and kill this 12 year old black child.

[janbee]

IF it had been a real gun and the police hadn't shouted, warned and then shot, then they'd be at fault for NOT doing anything. I feel sorry for the police. They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. They were in a hopeless situation. Cap guns were all very popular when we were kids but if a police office said "drop it or I'll shoot", believe me, we would've, so why didn't this lad? A very sad and very tragic outcome.

[BlackadderV]

I wondered when someone was going drag race into this.

[jno]

the caller said it was probably a fake but nobody told the cops - you can't help thinking that might have made a difference

[RandyMarsh]

do you think a white child would have been shot? lol.

[anotheoldgit]

RandyMarsh

/// do you think a white child would have been shot? lol. ///

That is a stupid thing to say, unless you think he was only shot because he was black? Incredible!!!!!!!!

[Peter Pedant]

lawful killing on the facts in any legal system you can name.

The moral of the story is 'do not reach for a fake gun when the police are pointing real ones at you '

English P'lice tazed a blind man with a white stick and successfully pleaded that they thought he had a gun.....

[ the person with the white stick was NOT the policeman ]

[sandyRoe]

Then there was the Scotsman in London shot dead because he had a chair leg in a carrier bag and spoke with an incomprehensible accent.

[ummmm]

Randy has a very valid point.

[Baldric]

Just out of curiosity what colour were the Police Officers who attended the incident?

[andy-hughes]

Such a tragedy, for all involved.

I would not like to get into an argument about the ethnicity of the boy concerned - there will be plenty of media comentators to get going on that strand of the circumstances.

I would be interested in a comment from the NRA about this.

[Old_Geezer]

If so then the answer to the question is, "Yes".
A risk is still a risk. Regardless of race.