Battle Creek Teen with Fake Gun Shot by Cop

[XLFD]

Witnesses at the scene and the policeman who shot the 14 year old kid have a different story of what transpired at a Battle Creek party store.  Those who care about the truth can only hope that a surveillance camera caught what might have transpired so that we can verify that either the boy was a threat and deserved to be shot or that he wasn't even holding the realistic toy gun at the time and the policeman overreacted.  If it may have been the latter, will the police protect their own veteran officer from prosecution, as often happens in similar situations?

Perhaps a good idea for our police officers is to have guns with built in micro-cameras that activate a split second before their gun fires the first shot, so that questions like this can be answered when there is a question of whether lethal force was properly used.   Incidents like this happen all too often, and more often than not, there is not an objective camera about.  What do you think may have happened here? 

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (WOOD) - A Battle Creek officer shot a 14-year-old who was showing a gun, police say -- though that weapon turned out to be fake.

The teen, identified by family members as 14-year-old Nicholas King, was taken to a hospital via ambulance for treatment Saturday afternoon.

Family says he underwent a six-hour surgery for a gunshot wound to the shoulder at Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo. Saturday evening, he was listed in critical condition and needed a tube to help him breathe.

 

 

"I want to know what happened, and why he, why this officer did what he did to my son? Nicholas King did not deserve this," his mother Patricia Nelson said.

Officers were first called to the area of South Washington Avenue and Upton Street around noon Saturday after reports of a man with a gun walking next to a woman, according to a release from the Battle Creek Police Department. The subject, who witnesses said was carrying a black pistol, then started running through some bushes toward a party store on the corner of Washington Avenue and Grove Street, officers were told.

Officers soon arrived at the party store. The subject had gone inside, then come back out and crouched down near the party store's drive-thru area.
An officer who saw the subject ordered him to show his hands, at which point the subject "produced" what looked like a large-caliber handgun -- though family and friends dispute that.

The officer fired one shot at the subject.
The subject dropped the gun and took off. Officers found him not far away with a gunshot wound.

Shannon Cortes was there with her friend Nicholas when he was shot. She said he raised his hands when the officer told him to.
"But he only went half way," she told 24 Hour News 8.
She said he did not have the weapon in his hand at the time.
"His hand was completely clear," she said.

The gun was not real, officers found, and was actually a replica Smith & Wesson semi-automatic handgun.

"I asked him to leave it in the house at 11:30 this morning. My exact last words I said was, 'Please leave the gun at home because what happens if you get shot?' And this is what happened," his mother said.

Family members said they don't believe Nicholas should have been shot.   "All I want is answers and I want to know why. Tell me why you shot my baby," Patricia Nelson demanded.
BCPD has called in the Michigan State Police to investigate, which is standard procedure for officer-involved shootings.
The officer, who has been with BCPD for 21 years, was not hurt. He has been placed on paid administrative leave, which is also standard procedure.

http://www.woodtv.com/news/local/kalamazoo-and-battle-creek/s-washi...

[Dave]

Will be interesting to hear how this case turns out. On the one hand, when an officer is in that sort of situation where he knows that a suspect has a gun... or in this case an item them apparently appeared to a gun... when that item is pulled an officer has to make a split second decision. What we need to know is as X noted, was a realistic looking gun or would it have been obvious to anyone that seen the item that it wasn't an actual gun. We also need to know that when the kid produced the gun, in what way did he do it.... did he just hold his hands up with the gun pointed to the sky or did the kid pull the gun looking item and have it aimed in the direction of the officer? If its the 2nd option, I would understand why the officer might of taken the shot. I did note something in the story that makes me think that the item the kid was carrying appeared to be an actual gun... that being that other people reported seeing someone carrying a gun which is what apparently got the police to respond in the first place.

[Willy]

This is also a story of bad parenting. His mother knew he had the gun but refused to make him leave it at home. She is just as responsible as the kid. This wasn't a matter of a piece of equipment being mistaken for a gun, to the officer, it was a matter of life and death. A stupid decision by a teenager backed by a stupid decision by the mother. This could have been a worse situation if bystanders had been wounded.

[XLFD]

UPDATE:  Girls who witnessed shooting have filed lawsuit for being illegally detained by Battle Creek Police afterwards.  If their allegations are true, BCPD may finally be held accountable for poorly training their officers.  Nicholas King recovers, officer who fired shots exonerated of any fault.  This video was made shortly thereafter, once some of the police reports/footage was released:

BATTLE CREEK, (WOOD) — A lawsuit against the Battle Creek Police Department and several of its officers claims they violated the Fourth and 14th Amendment rights of three minors who were taken in for questioning after a fellow teen was shot by an officer late last year.

The federal lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges that three teen girls were unlawfully detained at the scene and at the police station by police for several hours after police shot 14-year-old Nicholas King.

The shooting happened around noon on Nov. 16 after police were called by someone saying they had seen a man with a gun. BCPD dashcam video shows an officer arrive at the Drive Thru Party Factory on Washington Street.

“Let me see your hands. Let me see your hands. Get on the ground, get on the ground,” an officer can be heard saying in the video.

Police say Nicholas did not do as he was told and instead started to pull what looked like a handgun from the waistband of his pants. An officer then shot Nicholas. The teen survived, but was in the hospital for weeks.

It was later discovered that the gun was not a real firearm, but rather a replica.

In December, the Calhoun County prosecutor cleared the officer who opened fire — a 20-year BCPD veteran — of any wrongdoing, saying the officer had reasonable cause to assume he was in danger when he saw the teen start to pull the gun, which looked real.

That might have been the end of it — except Nicholas wasn’t the only teen present at the time of the incident.

The police dashcam video shows three girls scatter when shots are fired. They are now a part of a lawsuit against responding officers and the police department.

Sisters Jade and Shyann and their mother Alice Hillman, some of the plaintiffs in the case, described the day of the shooting to 24 Hour News 8 Thursday.

“We walked out and the cop came, told him to put his hands up and that’s when he shot,” Shyann said.

What allegedly happened after that led to their lawsuit against BCPD. The suit claims Jade, Shyann and one of their friends were unlawfully detained when they were not allowed to leave the scene of their shooting.

The lawsuit also claims Shyann and Jade were kept from their mother when she showed up on scene.

“When my little girl is screaming, I should have been allowed to go to her and comfort her. But no, they didn’t allow me to,” Hillman said.

The lawsuit also claims the girls were falsely arrested and imprisoned when they were placed in police cars and taken to the police station, then questioned in locked rooms for hours without the permission of their mother.

The suit says that was a violation of the girls’ constitutional rights.

It claims BCPD and its officers “acted recklessly and/or with deliberate indifference” and with “gross negligence” in the situation, and that BCPD did not adequately train its officers about citizens’ rights.

The suit asks for a monetary judgment.

City of Battle Creek officials said Thursday they could not comment on the case because they had not been served with it yet.

No court date has been set.

http://woodtv.com/2014/07/31/lawsuit-bcpd-unlawfully-detained-girls/