US police shoot dead 13-year-old boy carrying replica gun
Police in the US have shot dead a 13-year-old boy who was carrying a pellet gun to his friends house, believing it was a real automatic weapon.
Andy Lopez, from California, was carrying replica of an assault rifle was shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy.
The boy’s father, Rodrigo Lopez, said his son was a middle schooler who played the saxophone and liked basketball and boxing, was shot while on his way to a friend’s house with a pellet gun.
“It’s not right what they did to my son,” the distraught father said.
Lieutenant Paul Henry, investigating the incident for the Santa Rosa Police Department, said two sheriff’s deputies were patrolling a street near the boy’s home when they saw him with what appeared to be an assault weapon in his left hand.
One of the deputies shouted twice: “Put down the gun” according to a police statement.
“The subject turned toward the deputies, and as he was doing that the barrel of the weapon was rising toward the deputies”.
“The deputy then fired rounds, killing the boy.”
A neighbour reported hearing seven shots fired, the teenager was pronounced dead at the scene.
The incident comes amid growing concern over police shootings in California, where incidents in the city of Anaheim, southeast of Los Angeles, prompted protests in 2012.
Concern over seven fatal officer-involved shootings in three years in Sonoma County prompted calls in 2000 for a civilian review board, which was never established.
Police reported finding a plastic handgun tucked into the boy’s pants.
According to friends and family Andy Lopez had a good sense of humor but was recently was expelled from his middle school.
The officers involved in the shooting are now on administrative leave, which is standard procedure, and the incident is being investigated by the Santa Rosa Police Department.
