In another episode of 'Police Suck At Their Job', we have this story
LAPD Explains How Teen Standing Next To Pal Holding Fake Gun Was Shot
The LAPD on Thursday met with reporters to explain how an unarmed 15-year-old was shot in the back in south L.A. Tuesday morning.
The teen, they said, was standing in an alley next to someone holding a fake gun.
The officer of course says the teen denied multiple demands to put down the weapon, and from 20 feet away did not see the orange cap indicating it way a toy... so the obvious thing to do was to shoot the wrong person in the back.... makes plenty of sense.. or not.
The officer said he was 20 feet away and he saw a gun that looked very real.
“He approached the group and ordered the individual to — on multiple occasions — to drop the weapon,” Smith said.
According to one police source — not authorized to speak on-the-record — the officer said the person holding the gun — also a teen and a friend of the 15-year-old who was shot — was also standing in the shooting position. He said the teen whirled around and aimed the gun directly at the teenager.
That’s when the officer reportedly opened fire.
Instead of hitting the person holding the gun, he shot the teen that was standing next to him.
This is of course the toy manufacturers fault, and not the actions of officers terrified of the people they are sworn to protect:
At the news conference Thursday, CBS2’s Dave Lopez said police displayed the fake gun in an effort to show how real it looks. They also laid out a table of fake weapons that looked like real firearms.
....
Police said Thursday that fake weapons and replicas were a major problem and that they don’t have the luxury of time to know whether a gun is fake or not when in the possible line of fire.
The shooting victim was lucky enough to survive and now
wants an apology, not excuses, from the LAPD. Please also take note of the section I
bolded in the below quotation from the link above:
15-year-old Jamar Nicholson was shot in the back early Tuesday morning while standing next to a person who was holding a replica weapon, police have said. He was unarmed.
During an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Jamar displayed a bandage across the upper right side of his back, showing where he was shot by an officer Tuesday morning.
The bullet remains lodged in his back, and narrowly missed his spine. Jamar knew his friend was carrying an airsoft gun, but had no idea whether his friend was pointing it in his direction, he said. The boys were walking their normal route to school, when he heard someone yell, “Freeze!”
A Los Angeles police officer shot and wounded a 15-year-old after another teenager was seen pointing what turned out to be a replica gun.
Seconds later, he was shot.
Jamar said he didn’t even realize he’d been wounded until he’d fallen to the ground. An ambulance arrived 15 to 20 minutes later. He was hauled onto an gurney, handcuffed and then rushed to the hospital.
20 minutes to get help, an apparently during that time nobody noticed the gun he was not holding was a toy, but yet they handcuffed a teen shot in the back. Way to go LAPD.
Accoding to Jamar, the detective told him there had been a mistake and acknowledged Jamar had not committed any crime.
An LAPD captain apologized to Jamar’s mother, but the teen said he wants to hear that directly from the officer who shot him.
“I don’t want to see him again… but I do want that sorry,” he said.
Nearby residents who said they heard the gunshots told The Times that they did not hear officers issue a warning to drop a weapon. The department said multiple warnings were given before the shooting.