In two years, police killed 86 people brandishing guns that look real but aren't

[DonViejo]

By John Sullivan, Jennifer Jenkins, Julie Tate, Shaun Courtney and Jordan Houston

December 18 at 6:10 PM

On a warm September evening in Columbus, Ohio, panicked witnesses called police to report that a group of boys had robbed a man at gunpoint and fled into a maze of alleys and fences on the city’s east side.

In the fading light, Officer Bryan Mason cornered two of the boys in an alley, where, according to police, 13-year-old Tyre King pulled a gun from his waistband. Mason fired three rounds, striking the teen in the head, chest and torso.

The black gun police recovered at the scene looked like their own department-issued, polymer-framed Smith & Wesson Military and Police semiautomatic pistol. It even had a laser sight. But police would soon learn that King’s weapon was a BB gun — a facsimile of the gun Mason used to shoot and kill the teen.

At a news conference the next day, Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs waved a stock photograph of the BB gun. “Our officers carry a gun that looks practically identical to this weapon,” she said. “. . . It looks like a firearm that could kill you.”

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/in-two-years-police-killed-86-people-brandishing-guns-that-look-real--but-arent/2016/12/18/ec005c3a-b025-11e6-be1c-8cec35b1ad25_story.html?utm_term=.d021e14271f5&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

[Kolesar]

1. "And now they are thinking of banning the toy guns..."