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this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
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This is my take as an Akron resident:
We have a new community controlled local police oversight board.
The officer was called with the pretext that someone had been brandishing a firearm / pointing a gun at houses.
You can't see very well what the officer could see because the view is obstructed. It's entirely possible that the kid complied but accidentally pointed the gun towards the officer.
The officer shot exactly 1 time and shot in a non-lethal manner (the hand was shot). This was not a murder attempt, this was in a way the extra mile, the kid will hopefully make a full recovery.
The fake gun is not an orange tipped fake, it's very similar to a real looking gun. The kid also was not with friends "playing pretend" or anything like that.
As soon as the kid started yelling the officer immediately deescalated the situation and moved towards first aid.
The officer does have a messy history, particularly when alcohol is involved and when off duty, but was entirely sober at the time of the shooting and has never been known to be drunk while on duty.
We have had issues in the past few years locally particularly with teen violence. They've been trying to solve it, but some kids are carrying guns and robbing people, some kids have been carrying guns to protect themselves from the other kids, and evidently some kids are carrying fake guns too.
I'm glad this kid got to walk away with their life. I hope their hand isn't too messed up and I hope they don't have too much mental distress. They never should've walked around in public with a toy gun and "showed it off", and I hope they never do this again.
If the officer really did something wrong, I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of it, but as it stands, I think the officer reacted reasonably.
It's hard to tell if the shot was intentional. The office is talking to the kid and exiting his vehicle when he shoots him. Cops aim at your center, not your hands.
Orange tips haven't stopped police from shooting people in the past. They've even claimed criminals paint orange tips on real guns. If he were playing with friends police would probably be responding to reports of an armed gang.
I'm not seeing anywhere that the cop had his BAC tested, or that he was tested for any substances after this shooting.
I'm not sure what your point is. Should police treat teens in your area as threats because some are carrying real guns?
This kid will absolutely have mental distress and is probably going to be terrified of cops forever. And if the officer did do something wrong and they get to the bottom of it, then what? This cop has already proven he's a danger and hasn't faced any real consequences.
It would be one heck of a coincidence if this kid just so happened to get shot dead in the middle of the hand that was holding the fake gun.
The point isn't that they haven't stopped it. The point is this toy gun wasn't one of those toy guns; the officer had no clear marking to go off of. You can go on to say "he would've shot him anyways" but that's your bias, not anything we can know for sure either way.
The point is that wasn't an allegation against the officer by the kid, any other officers, or in any of his prior incidents/suspensions; i.e., there's no reason to believe that was the case here based in reported facts.
The point is that this isn't Mayberry and there was reason for the officer to believe that this teenager they'd never met, in an area that's had problems with this, posed a real threat to them. People under 25 are (sadly) responsible for the majority of violent crime in the city currently.
Well, we'll see. The citizen oversight board is new and untested. The mayor is similarly new and untested (but passionate about the issue). The office of chief of police is in transition and currently unfilled.
It would be incredibly hard to intentionally shoot someone in the hand in this type of situation. I don't think his hand was the intended target. The cop hasn't even fully exited his cruiser when he shoots. It says he shot him within seconds of the encounter.
The cop isn't acting like the kid is a threat to him. He rolls up maybe 15 feet away, directly in his line of sight, talks to him through the window, and starts to exit his cruiser. He didn't observe from a distance, or seek cover, or call for backup. He needlessly put himself in danger if he thought this kid was going to try to kill him.
Yes, but the fact of the matter is that he was shot in the hand. It's entirely possible this cop has spent a lot of time at the range and intentionally made that shot.
This was one bullet in a (relatively rare) case of firearm discharge by an officer in Akron. The chances of that one bullet being fired and one bullet accidentally hitting exactly where it needed to are pretty low.
It was also pretty close range (which makes this easier), if he was aiming for center mass and hit this kid's hand, he would have to be an incredibly bad shot.
It's pretty clear he either didn't think this was the kid or wasn't expecting to have (what looked like) a gun pointed in his general discussion.
It's also pretty clear that backup was not far away based on there being other cops on the scene within seconds of the shooting.
That was still plenty of time if it was a real gun for that officer's family to be attending a funeral right now.