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Monday, November 4, 2013

13 Year-old boy is shot seven times by police officers in California

In case you haven't heard, Mia Levy and I have a blog called In Loco Politico, in which we will be posting a news article from either around the world, the nation, or the state and give our own input on it. I highly encourage you to visit and comment with your thoughts on the topic!

A few weeks ago, a 13 year-old was killed by two police officers, who shot him 7 times within 26 seconds. The police were dispatched to the area after a report of a suspicious person in the North California town of Santa Rosa. The kid, Andy Lopez, had his back to the police when they arrive. According to police reports and eye witnesses, Lopez was carrying around a toy gun which looked a lot like an actual AK-47.
The toy gun (right) in comparison to an actual AK-47 (left).

After he was yelled at by the two police officers to drop his weapon, but did not comply and rather turned around to face the police. At this moment, they opened fire a total of 8 times with 7 bullets hitting his body, 2 of which were labeled as fatal.
Did the police do what was necessary or did they act out of line? Both cases can be made. The gun clearly looked like an actual weapon, especially from a far. Some will argue that they should have assured that it was a real gun before firing, but that could have easily put them and innocent civilians in danger had it been a real gun. With all the recent shootings in the news, some even being perpetrated by teenagers or young adults, they had every right to assume that the weapon was real. I do not condone the actions of the police officers; the death of this young boy was unnecessary and a shame. But one must be able to see why the police open fired in the first place, and that there was reasonable suspicion that it was a real weapon that could have potentially killed the officers and any bystanders.

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