Police Shoot 12 Year Old Holding Fake Gun

A 12-year-old boy was shot dead by police in Cleveland, USA after carrying what turned out to be a duplicate of a gun in a playground.

Police officials stated that an officer fired two shots at the boy after he failed to obey an order to raise his hands.
A 911 caller reported the boy to the police for scaring people with a gun but said he wasn’t sure if the gun was real.
The medical examiner for Cuyahoga County identified the boy as Tamir Rice.

The scene where Tamir was shot.

The boy was shot on Saturday afternoon and died in the hospital early Sunday morning.
According to BBC News Cleveland deputy police Chief Ed Tomba said the boy was shot twice after pulling the gun from the waistband of his trousers.

The boy did not make any verbal threats or point the gun towards the officers, Mr Tomba added.

Police said the gun was an “airsoft” replica gun that looked like  a semi-automatic pistol, adding that an orange safety indicator had been removed.

The caller said the boy was pulling the gun in and out of his trousers. “I don’t know if it’s real or not,” the caller told police.

But according to Jeff Follmer, president of the Cleveland police association, said the two officers at the scene were not told about the caller’s comments.

The BBC reports that an investigation is under way and both officers have been placed on administrative leave.

A lawyer for Rice’s family, Timothy Kucharski, told BBC that he would be conducting an investigation, in “parallel” to the police, in order to establish exactly what happened.
“If in fact we determine that Tamir’s rights are violated, we will proceed with civil action against the police,” he said.


Cleveland’s police force has come under increased scrutiny in recent years, most notably over a high profile car chase in 2012 that ended with two deaths and officers firing 137 shots.