Posted on 07/08/2014 7:08:32 AM PDT by Uncle Chip
Prosecutors said Monday they will not file criminal charges against a Northern California sheriff's deputy who shot and killed a 13-year-old boy carrying a pellet gun he mistook for an assault rifle....
Deputy Erick Gelhaus, 48, fired multiple rounds in response to what he believed was an imminent threat of death, Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch announced at a news conference.
'While in the lawful performance of his duty, Deputy Gelhaus was faced with a highly unpredictable and rapidly evolving situation,' Ravitch said. 'He believed honestly and reasonably that he was faced with a do-or-die dilemma.'
'While this was an absolute tragedy it was not a criminal act,' Ravitch said.
Gelhaus shot Lopez on October 22 as the teen walked near his home with the pellet gun. The deputy told investigators he believed the gun was real and opened fire out of fear for his life.
At least one witness said he heard the deputy order Lopez to drop the pellet gun before shooting, Ravitch said.
Gelhaus fired eight times, striking the eighth-grader seven times with his department-issued 9 mm handgun.
The district attorney said Gelhaus had 18 rounds in his gun and stopped shooting when he felt the threat had ended....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Also see my comments in #38. This situation "went wrong" before it even started.
Not only that, the area this happened in, the local paper had an article abuot how nearly every other house was a grow, a dealer or gang affiliate.
If the neighbors knew that it was a toygun, then why couldn’t Santa Rosa’s finest — especially the guy who spends so much time at the shooting range and teaches trainees firearm safety???
In related news, the parents of 13-year-old Andy Lopez will sue Gelhaus and Sonoma County in the death of their son. The federal civil rights lawsuit will be filed on Monday at the Federal District Court in San Francisco.
The lawsuit will allege that the shooting of Andy was unconstitutional in that it violated the Fourth Amendment’s limits on police authority.
Lopez had an AK-47 AND A Replica handgun in his waistband.
a neighbor told him the deputies were behind him, driving up to him and he needed to put the gun down..this before the sound of the siren and then the officer yelling twice to put the gun down. Tragic he didnt comply.
he recently transferred to program designed for behavior management
According to his father, he was expelled from Lawrence Cook Middle School in Santa Rosa. On Tuesday, he had been sent home early from his new alternative school, for what his parents described as lingering too long at a local store during a break.
There is no doubt this was a mistake, but given all the factors; call to the scene (someone else felt threatened or perceived such), bad violent neighborhood (the helicopters hover over it every night without anyone shot), gang colors, non-compliant, realistic toy weapon, I tend to side with reasonable mistake. The deputy knew the neighborhood. I do not perceive him as trigger happy.
Thanks for the info.
The inside story I cannot verify is that Lopez tried to rob a woman using the toy.
More Than 1,000 Attend Andy Lopez Protest Rally in Santa Rosa
Some of us are too busy working to attend a ‘protest rally’ on a Tuesday in the middle of the day especially since some of these people are illegals.
Investigators say the hoodie-wearing teen didn’t comply with commands to drop the gun and was turning toward deputies while raising the barrel when he was shot seven
times.
Victor Manieri, 15, a freshman at Elsie Allen High School, left school early to join the march
Mitzi Reyes, 16, a junior at Elsie Allen, marched with her mother and two younger brothers.
KRON 4 reports that Santa Rosa school officials, as well as school district administrators and elected school board members, urged students to stay in class during the protest march.
Look at the pictures and you tell me which is which.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20140707/articles/140709709
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20140707/articles/140709706
It is illegal for a 13 year old to purchase, brandish or carry in public a replica gun.
The protesters, including middle- and high-school-age students and members of the Occupy movement, assembled in downtown Santa Rosa before marching through streets with signs and hooded sweatshirts bearing photos of the boy.
I believe it was an airsoft gun, not a pellet gun. They are considered replicas and usually have the same size and weight of a real gun. In many states it is illegal to remove the orange tip.
You missed this part:
Investigators have said 10 seconds elapsed between the time Gelhaus and a trainee reported a 'suspicious person' and then reported shots fired to dispatchers. The trainee did not open fire.
10 seconds for all of that and that is fact. So he only yelled once and never identified himself as a police officer.
Since when is turning to see who is yelling at you a capitol crime requiring 8 shots???
I shoot with cops every month and most are poor shots on there best day. Had one shot the floor and one Sheriff shot the wall as he was trying to clear a stove pipe round. Most do not understand weapons and do not really want to learn.
Andy Lopez slaying tops progressives’ meeting
shooting death of 13-year-old Andy Lopez surfaced throughout the meeting of the North Bay Organizing Project, which contains members from various local nonprofit, religious and activist groups
Teens and others have taken to the streets for at least five marches and rallies
North Bay Organizing Project president Leticia Romero said in her opening remarks that she wanted to recognize how the shooting of Lopez “is indicative of what’s not working in our society.”
Romero said. “We will no longer be spectators.”
At the podium, Sarris championed the tribe’s casino, slated to open to the public Tuesday, and the tribe’s growing influence in the community.
“To the public officials here today: You better listen. You better come to our side of town and listen because now I’ve got what you always had: It’s called money,” Sarris said.
Speakers delved into the Santa Rosa city schools effort, new this year, to address expulsion rates through restorative justice and on the efforts to improve bus service and other public transit concerns.
Thompson outlined his platform for immigration overhaul.
“What does justice look like? We hope people can start to be able to articulate that,” she said. “Is it money being funneled into parks? Is it money funneled to that community, into the schools?”
http://www.watchsonomacounty.com/2013/11/cities/andy-lopez-slaying-tops-progressives-meeting/
That’s easy — the one on the left is the toy with the grey metal end and you can see that the end of the rifle that included the orange tip had been cut off.
Surely the police know that kids all over California cut off those tips or are they all willingly ignorant just so they can shoot kids carrying them???
Carrying a rifle or pellet gun should not be an immediate, shoot on sight, death warrant.
No it shouldn’t, but if you don’t put the weapon down when ordered to do so, and appear to be moving the weapon into a firing position, that’s a different situation.
I think she was fired. Don't know if charges were filed against her but I doubt it.
“If the neighbors knew that it was a toygun”
Get your facts straight...it wasn’t a ‘toy gun’ it was a replica. There is a difference.
Yeah, I saw that in the report later.
The original article wasn’t clear on the “posture”.
And when the cop shouts 'put down the gun' twice it is probably a wise thing to put down the damn gun.
he was NOT legally carrying the toy gun,. he had modified it by removing the orange tip, which was on the toy for just this specific reason - to show that it was a toy. he removed it, thereby making it look like a facsimile gun, which he cannot legally carry.
i dare you to not do exactly what the cop did in the same situation.
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