14 DAY TRIAL // A deputy has fatally shot a young boy after spotting him holding a BB-gun on the streets of Santa Rosa on Tuesday.
13-year-old Andy Lopez was walking on Moorland Avenue when he was summoned to stop and drop the weapon.
“At some point immediately thereafter, the deputies fired several rounds from their handguns at the subject striking him several times,” a spokesperson the Sonoma county sheriff’s office states.
“Once the scene was secured deputies learned that the rifle was a replica of an assault weapon,” the statement adds, according to Raw Story.
Police Lt. Paul Henry explained that the policeman believed that he was clutching an AK-47 assault rifle.
The Press Democrat describes that the incident has prompted protests in the Santa Rosa community, with members asking how police officers can mistake a fake gun for a real one.
The eighth-grader was spotted during routine patrol. Two officers were on patrol that day, and police are not disclosing the name of the shooter.
“The deputy's mindset was that he was fearful that he was going to be shot,” Henry says.
“He has quite a bit of experience with this kind of weapon. He's aware of the kind of damage these kinds of weapons can do. [It] can penetrate his body armor, can penetrate the metal of his vehicle, and also the sides of houses and buildings in the area.”
He mentions the victim pointing the barrel of the gun toward the officers and refusing to put the gun down.
“Put the gun down,” a witness claims to have heard twice, before the shooting. An investigation into the incident is ongoing.
“As a father of two boys about this age, I can’t begin to imagine the grief this family is going through,” Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas has expressed in a statement.