Two assholes with uniforms, weapons, immunity, and pensions.
Trayvon for the Amnesty crowd/mob/hoarde/gang
Nor should it. Instructing twice and shooting somebody within ten seconds is not going to give anybody enough time to react properly.
Odds are, the kid was startled and unable momentarily to follow any instructions.
1) An Airsoft AK looks like the real thing.
2) Police took cover behind an open car door. An AK-47 will penetrate a car door—sometimes both doors—and almost every other part of a car body.
In all fairness, Santa Rosa has some serious gang problems and gang violence.
That pellet gun looks exactly like an AK-47 assault rifle with a magazine loaded
That's 30-40 rounds of 7.62X39 which is pretty deadly at less than 100 yds and even in semi auto 30 aimed shots take about 20 seconds.
So you can kill 30 -40 people in less than 30 seconds.
I'll reserve judgment because if this was in a crowded area where there were a large number of people within close range and the police thought the guy was about let loose on a bunch of unarmed people it could be a mitigating factor.
Remember, California has very strict gun control, including the Bertil -Roos Assault weapon ban
There are very, very few legal AK-47s in California because Bertil-Roos went into effect banning assault rifles in 1988 or so - a time when virtually no AK-47s were in the country.
The pellet gun has what appears to be a full size, high capacity magazine, which is illegal in California, so the cops no doubt figured they were dealing with a guy carrying an illegal assault rifle with an illegal high capacity magazine.
A guy walking down the street with an AK 47 would not raise a fuss in Arizona or Texas, but this is California we are talking about.
It's a pellet gun, which can easily blind someone, and can penetrate a human skull.
The kid is 13, no adult present, carrying the weapon in a public urban area.
That breaks two California laws right there.
His back was turned to the cops, and he was wearing a hoody, so age was difficult to determine.
When ordered to drop the gun - twice - he turned around, still holding the gun, which was now pointed in the direction of the officers.
I am so sick of militarized LEOs
They better damn well get right quick when it gets hot
When I didn’t know the 10 second info I was willing to understand the cops actions now not at all.
These guys were trigger happy. Hope they get charged with manslaughter.
We live not far from where this happened. It’s definitely a “low rent” area, with a combination of very small board houses and open fields that used to be part of someone’s farm (and sometimes still are). But although there are some gang issues around here, I’ve never felt threatened in that neighborhood.
Just wanted to pass on what our local rag related: that the two deputies were a trainer and a trainee. The trainer did all the shooting; the trainee, none.
FWIW, I think the deputy was entirely too hasty in his actions. I hope he’s charged with manslaughter. To go from yelling instructions to drop the weapon (which may be incomprehensible to someone who at first doesn’t even realize they’re yelling at HIM) to firing in less than 10 seconds? And then to unload the whole thing into the theoretical “perp?” I think this is someone who is suffering from twitchiness and anxiety ... with undiagnosed PTSD or similar ... who is either so anxious all the time that he unloads at the slightest provocation, or else is “itching” to shoot. We don’t need people like that in our force.
The FBI are going to investigate.
Has anyone heard about a dash-cam video? I’ve not seen that addressed in the few articles I’ve read.
13-Year-Old With Pellet Gun Shot 7 Times by Police
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/marchers-protest-calif-deputys-shooting-boy-20668711
“A Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy twice told the boy to drop the weapon, but he instead raised it in the deputy’s direction, police said at a news conference Wednesday.
Police said two deputies were riding in a marked patrol vehicle and were in uniforms when they spotted Andy in a hooded sweatshirt and shorts at 3:14 p.m. Tuesday. His back was turned toward the deputies, and they did not realize he was a boy.
One of the deputies saw what appeared to be an assault rifle similar to an AK-47 in the teen’s left hand. The deputies pulled over and took cover behind one of the vehicle’s doors, according to police.
A witness reported seeing the patrol car’s overhead emergency lights turn on and hearing the chirp of a siren, police said.
One of the deputies twice ordered Andy to drop the weapon, according to a witness, police said.
The teen was about 20 or 30 feet away from the deputies with his back toward them when he began turning around with what one deputy described as the barrel of the rifle rising up and turning in his direction, police said.
One deputy then fired several rounds, striking the boy at least once, Henry said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators said they believe eight rounds were fired. The timeline released by Santa Rosa police says those shots were fired within 10 seconds of the deputies’ first report of a suspicious person.
At Wednesday’s news conference, Santa Rosa police displayed the pellet gun alongside a real AK-47. The two appeared strikingly similar.”
I would love to get all outraged over this. 10 Seconds seems like a vanishingly short amount of time for anyone to react. However, the last time, I got mad was when the local new played a 911 tape of the screams of a “small child” being chased down and brutally murdered by a rogue, vigilante member of a neighborhood watch. We all know how that turned out. The cops in this case may be murderous thugs. But, we DO know that collectively the media is a lying sack of scummage. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if 6 months down the line, we find out that none of the currently reported “fact” are indeed true.
“Not looking good for the police in this case at all.”
No, you are wrong. The boy who was wearing a hoodie and originally had his back to the police, had a replica weapon, did NOT drop it when told to by the police officer. Instead he turned and raised it toward the officer who reacted as trained. This air soft gun DID NOT have the legally required ORANGE muzzle all such replicas must have.
My girlfriend and I were in the parking lot of Harbor Freight Tools in Stockton, California, two months ago when a young Hispanic man, about 22-23, in an orange traffic work vest, came running out between two parked cars with a look of terror on his face. About twenty feet behind him another young Hispanic man about 24 years old, clean shaven, in black sweats, was chasing him with a stubby barreled AR-15 with a collapsible stock, trying to get a bead on him. I could clearly see the barrel was dead black, no orange tip. My girlfriend said “get us out of here!” As she started sliding down in the seat, and I checked my rear view mirror and found I could not backout as a car was blocking us. The only way was right between them. I gunned the engine and we went between the runner and the guy with the gun. I got another good look at the gun. No orange. I was hitting my phone control and telling my phone to call 911, as we hit the street.
Within two minutes six Stockton PD cars and a swat team pulled down Waterloo Road heading for the strip mall. We turned around to meet them. My girl friend and I were the ONLY ones of the ten 911 callers that called to report the man with the gun that actually met with the police. We spotted the guy in the vest at a store front “church” next door to Harbor Freight and pointed him out to the police. He played “no habla ingles!” for about ten minutes. Even the two “pastors” of the “church” played dumb. My girlfriend offered to translate, being fluent in Spanish, at which point it turned out he spoke English.
He claimed he got bored while guarding the “church” (hence the traffic safety vest), so he and a buddy decided to play cops and robbers in the parking lot with a couple of air soft guns. He wouldn’t give up his buddy who he said was in the “church” but finally one of the “pastors” brought out the buddy wearing, a bearded young man in a white shirt and tie. This WAS NOT the man my girlfriend and I saw chasing the guy in the vest. . . nor did he, as he claimed to the police, also have an air soft gun. He was, in fact, totally terrified when I first saw him running from the guy with the AR-15! I pulled one of the cops over and told him “This is not the guy we saw. The guy we saw was clean shaven and was wearing sweats!”
The guy’s story agreed with the first guy’s. . . playing cops and robbers with air soft guns. There were now six cops standing around armed with REAL AR -15s. They were pissed. The stores in the mall were all in lock-down. The cops demanded to know where the air soft guns were. They wanted to inspect them. Buddy says “In the trunk of my car.”
The cop says let’s go. They come back with two AK-47 replicas made of machined metal. . . with orange tipped barrels! Neither was the gun I saw. They were quite heavy, and if not for the orange tip, almost impossible to tell from a real AK. they were heavier than the police AR-15s. The cop’s had NEVER seen such well made replicas. I tell the cops that’s not the gun I saw and that having managed The Olde Sacramento Armoury, I AM familiar enough with firearms to know what I saw!
In any case, the officers told the young men that had they rolled in WHILE they were still carrying them, they would most likely have SHOT them, orange barrels or not, because the police are trained to IGNORE the orange barrel because gang members are painting orange barrel tips on real guns! And kids paint out the orange tips on toys. They can’t know what’s real and what’s not. . . so, for their own safety, they have to err on the side of it being real. “I would not want to be calling your family down to the morgue to identify your body, but that’s what WILL happen.”
My girl friend and I are positive the air soft story was a cover-up. That gun was the real McCoy. That guy was terrified. My driving between them may have given him enough separation to let the runner time to duck into the door of the “church” to safety.
You may have noticed my use of quotes around certain words. We don’t think the “church” was a church at all. How many churches have guards? How many have no women come out to check on things when there is a disturbance after services? How many have pastors who don’t speak up when members are in trouble? Who don’t wear crosses? Who don’t invite the police in? And pointedly block the view inside? Whose members sport prison and gang tats? Hmmmm. A week later the “church” storefront was for lease.
The important take from this story is that police cannot take chances. A thirteen or fourteen year old these days can be as tall as six feet, some sport facial hair. With a hoodie? Carrying a realistic firearm which is being turned toward you? Would you think it was a toy?
The blame for this is squarely on the anti gun movement. They have created a irrational, and in this case, deadly fear in minds of law enforcement. I am in way excusing these two cops. They should go to jail for at least second degree murder. But, the true impetus behind this boy’s death are Sandy Hook anti gun nuts, Michael Bloomberg, the Brady campaign, etc.
investigation will be about as accurate as the Warren Commision, justified shooting.
Al this talk of who is at fault for the shooting and if the kid did something wrong is missing the real issue here. WTH were they doing going after him for bearing arms? Carrying a gun is a protected fundamental right.
This entire incident happened because the police infringed on a free person’s right to keep and bare arms! That’s the cause of this murder.
To use such poor judgment, these cops must be on drugs. A sober, reasonably intelligent, sane person would not so quickly & callously kill someone.
After such incidents, the involved cops should be immediately tested for drugs, alcohol, & steroids.
IMO, cops are so afraid of the “mean streets”, so hogtied by politically correct rules & regs, they are using steroids & other drugs as artificial courage.