13-year-old shot & killed by deputy

[Shins]

But not everyone the cops shoot is a criminal.
I'm still waiting for some member to come in and give us their "I had pellet guns since I was 3 and we used to point them at the sheriff for fun and no one ever got shot" story.

That's not what I said.

I meant "robbers" or "burglars" or "rapists" do whatever the fuck they want - when it comes to the consequence they inflict on their victim.

Police follow protocols (for the most part - as I said), which removes a lot of "victim" title when a casualty occurs. ...exactly why it's called a casualty and not a murder.

[Ron_NYC]

That's not what I said.

I meant "robbers" or "burglars" or "rapists" do whatever the fuck they want - when it comes to the consequence they inflict on their victim.

Police follow protocols (for the most part - as I said), which removes a lot of "victim" title when a casualty occurs. ...exactly why it's called a casualty and not a murder.

Oh. But when people are unarmed, the term murder should be used a bit more often. This kid is a casualty.

I don't get the outrage. If this happened to me, my parents would be mad as hell.... with me, for getting myself killed.

[puzzld]

Yeah. Are we talking about the first kid? Or the second. I'd think you'd could tell the first kid wasn't much of a threat from quite a distance. The second? Not so much. I don't know how far this kid was from the cop and what the light was like. That makes a difference too. But even back in the '60s when I was playing with toy guns, we had rules. We played only in our own yards not in a park or playground. When someone came onto the property, the game stopped until the visitor had been greeted and seen to the house... just because you didn't want to worry anyone.

[Harlette]

I was just about to ask that. What was he doing with the pellet gun in the first place? I'm sure he wasn't in his backyard shooting at old soda cans. This is one of those things where it's hard for me to be on one side, because I can see points with both. Regardless, a 13 year old is dead and that is just really sad. And I'm hoping this officer is feeling bad that he took a kid's life, even if he felt he made the right choice at this time.

i read it was 2:30 in the afternoon and he was walking down the street carrying the pellet gun to return to it to his friend he borrowed it from

[puzzld]

By now, most of you are aware of the killing of 13 year old Andy Lopez by Sonoma Deputy Erick Gelhaus, who claims he mistook his toy AK-47 for a real rifle and thought his life was in immediate danger. This afternoon, SFGate is reporting an earlier incident involving Gelhaus that raises serious questions about this man's mental stability.

A Santa Rosa resident named Jeff Westbrook claims that after being pulled over last August by Gelhaus for not signaling a lane change, Gelhaus pulled his gun on Westbrook not once but twice. Gelhaus ordered him to turn off his BMW, which had already been turned off. At that point Gelhaus pulled his weapon. After writing the ticket, Gelhaus ordered Westbrook to follow him back to his cruiser and pulled his weapon again before frisking him.

The interaction troubled Westbrook so much that he recalled asking Gelhaus at one point, "Sir, is there something wrong with you?"

Westbrook did report the troubling incident to Gelhaus' superior, but now says he is "devastated" to learn that this is the same man who shot and killed Andy Lopez.

"I felt like I was watching somebody I needed to help," said Westbrook, 57, a program manager at an information technology company. "This was not right. He did not manage this correctly."

Westbrook said he is now wondering whether he should have pressed his complaints.
"I'm struggling with that now," Westbrook said. "I'm wondering, if I had fought this a little more aggressively - actually waved around like a chimpanzee with my arms in the air to the district attorney's office and come down there physically - that maybe something could have changed. I don't know."

Pulling a gun twice on a person who is fully cooperating during a routine traffic stop should, in my opinion, have raised some red flags with this deputy's superiors.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/1...led-Andy-Lopez

[M Joy]

And here I was giving the cop the benefit of the doubt.

[Shins]

It changes things a bit, but not completely.

[Nic B]

District Attorney Jill Ravitch?s office cleared Gelhaus of criminal wrongdoing. He was promoted to sergeant in 2016 and retired in 2019.

Weeks after Lopez was killed, his family filed a civil rights lawsuit against Gelhaus, the Sheriff?s Office and the county, which they settled for $3 million in 2018.

Community organizations have held anniversary vigils for Lopez nearly every year since. Today, Lopez?s death and its fallout still stoke anger and pain in the community. His name was among the many rallying cries of last summer?s protests against police violence in Sonoma County.

The boy?s death is also the focus of a recent investigative documentary, ?3 Seconds in October,? which uses previously confidential police investigation records, interviews and court documents to reconstruct a detailed account of the shooting and its aftermath.

According to a statement from Sonoma County independent filmmaker Ron Rogers, the 28-minute documentary has spurred a reexamination of the shooting.

?That was not information that I had available to me at the time that I made the decision that I did,? District Attorney Ravitch said in a July interview with local radio station KSRO, regarding details that came to light in the years following her 2014 decision not to press charges against Gelhaus. ?I don?t know if I would have come to the same conclusion.?

Jerry Threet, a civil rights lawyer and former director of the county?s Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Oversight, is also preparing to request California Attorney General Rob Bonta revisit the Lopez shooting and determine whether Gelhaus should be held criminally liable for the boy?s death.

?The petition will request that the AG review the Gelhaus criminal investigation in light of recent revelations that call into question the integrity of that investigation,? Threet told The Press Democrat.

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/articl...since-13-year/

[Boston Babe 73]

Too little. Too late.

ACAB