A boy was suspended from school and arrested, and his home was searched by police after he shared a photo of an empty toy gun he received as a birthday present on social media.
The post Child Arrested for Sharing Photo of Toy Gun on Social Media That He Got for His Birthday appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Los Angeles, CA — The parents of a 20-year-old man who was shot to death by police and then run over by a patrol car, are now begging for the officers responsible for their son’s death be held accountable for their actions.
Eric Rivera, 20, was killed by Los Angeles police officers in June, following a 911 call about a man with a gun. Officers Arturo Urrutia and Daniel Ramirez approached Rivera on the night of June 7. They claimed that they exited their vehicle so quickly, they forgot to put the car in park. As they were opening fire on the man they believed to be brandishing a handgun, the car continued to roll over the young man, but not before the officers struck him seven times, with at least one bullet piercing his skull.
In a tragic scene that undoubtedly could have been derived from an action movie, the car rolled over Rivera, pinning him to a wall and trapping his body underneath the police cruiser. As the investigation into the officer-involved shooting unfolded, a crane had to be called in to lift the vehicle from over Rivera’s body. The family’s lawyer described the young man’s torso as “literally mangled.”
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There were no firearms found at the scene. While a multi-colored water pistol was recovered, Rivera’s family told reporters it does not belong to their son. They are now calling for the prosecutor’s office to bring charges of negligent homicide against Urrutia and Ramirez.
The family has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit but will drop the lawsuit under one condition. according to KTLA:
Rivera’s parents are willing to drop their federal civil rights lawsuit if Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey agrees to prosecute the officers involved, according to Casillas & Associates, the law firm representing the family.
Representatives from Casillas & Associates are turning up the heat on the prosecutor’s office, calling out the LA County district attorney by name. “This is a negligent homicide. Jackie Lacey, do your job,” Attorney Arnoldo Casillas told reporters.
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Officers Urrutia and Ramirez have been cleared of all wrongdoing, according to the KTLA, and are reportedly back on the field performing their regular duties—citizens of Los Angeles, beware.
Lawyers for the Rivera family produced an animated video describing how they believe the alleged homicide occurred. However, the LAPD claims their animation is not based on any evidence that the department is aware of. They countered the video production in a statement saying:
“We do not know the basis for the video graphic produced by the attorney for Mr. Rivera’s family. What we do know is that the video does not take into consideration the substantial evidence collected by [LAPD investigators] as part of [their] exhaustive investigation of the incident.”
Valerie Rivera, Eric Rivera’s mom lamented her loss. “I’m never going to be able to hug my son again. We’re never going to be able to spend holidays with him again. He’s not here with us,” She said.
Casillas said his department located an eyewitness, a security guard who passed Rivera on the sidewalk. The guard reportedly told the legal team Rivera was acting normally and posed no threat to himself or anyone else. Casillas said the squirt gun found on the scene looked “like Buzz Lightyear’s ray gun.”
The Free Thought Project will continue to provide updates on this story as the legal proceedings continue and video obtained through the officers’ Body cameras or Dash cameras are released.
Spartanburg, SC — A video posted to social media over the weekend caused heavy backlash for the Spartanburg police department which prompted them to release body cam video of the same incident. The videos show a 9-year-old boy being handcuffed and placed in a police cruiser for allegedly throwing rocks and playing with a toy gun.
The two videos highlight the importance of being truthful when sharing evidence of alleged police misconduct and the damage done by those out to spread false information.
The incident happened on June 29, when police were dispatched to a neighborhood over a 911 call about some children throwing rocks and playing with a toy gun.
The caller told dispatchers that the child with the orange-tipped toy gun shot her son in the buttocks and also threw rocks at her home.
The stories from both parents differed greatly.
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Prior to police releasing the body cam footage, the following video was posted online with the subsequent description:
Very disturbing video. This happened in Spartanburg SC. We were told that this 11 year old boy was playing outside, throwing rocks when the police pulled up with guns drawn. He was eventually handcuffed behind his back and put into a patrol car. This little boy makes good grades, plays basketball, football, baseball and runs track. He also has been a participant in the Omega Camp for four years in a row.
Our question for Spartanburg City Police Office is….does your policing policy include pulling out guns on and handcuffing 11 year old kids??? And yes, we saw the lady pick up the orange tip toy gun from the grass…we were told he was handcuffed because of rocks that were thrown…not because of a very obvious toy gun.
The video went viral and was shared tens of thousands of times being reposted on multiple pages with the same description. The Spartanburg police department was flooded with angry calls asking why on earth a police officer would hold a small child at gunpoint and place him in handcuffs for a toy gun.
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However, it appears from the body camera footage, released by the police department, that the officer never pulled his gun.
This incident began in an eerily similar fashion to that of Tamir Rice who was shot and killed by cops for the same actions as the 9-year-old in the video above. However, this cop chose not to kill.
It appears, from the body camera footage below, that the responding officer acted appropriately.
As TFTP has reported numerous times in the past, police have and will kill children for holding toy guns. Only two months ago, in San Diego, police killed a young boy in a school parking lot for holding a toy gun.
According to FOX Carolina, the department said they released the entire recording from the officer’s body cam “in the interest of transparency” and to correct some of the misinformation that has been shared.
The only questionable part of the arrest was the officer’s decision to handcuff the small child and place him in the back of the cruiser. However, given the fact that the officer chose not to shoot at or kill the young boy, the handcuffing was overshadowed.
Spartanburg police also shared that their policies based on case law do not prohibit the handcuffing of juveniles or any individuals identified as suspects in the initial phases of a police investigation, reports FOX.
When watching the video below, it is important to remind ourselves about the damaging nature of sharing information that is only half true or completely false. When false information is shared, the entire movement is discredited and set back that much further.
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Any number of other cops, when presented with a child holding a toy gun, could have and would have shot and killed him — or, at the very least, actually pulled out their gun.
The cop in the video below deserves scrutiny for his choice to handcuff the child, but he also deserves praise for sparing the boy’s life.
Hoke County, NC — In a most ridiculous nanny/police state move, a five-year-old kindergartner has been suspended from school for playing with a stick — because it looked like a gun.
A North Carolina mom is speaking out after she says her daughter was suspended last week for playing with a stick that resembled a gun. Brandy Miller said her daughter Caitlin was suspended Friday after she and some friends were playing “King and Queen” during recess.
As WTVD reports, in the game, Caitlin played a guard, protecting the royals, and picked up the “stick gun” to imitate shooting an intruder into the kingdom.
Apparently, one of the teachers saw the dangerous ‘stick gun’ and reported the five-year-old to the principal’s office. It gets worse.
Instead of simply telling the girl that it’s not allowed to point inanimate pieces of shrubbery at others and pretend it’s a gun, the Hoke County school system actually released a statement saying, Caitlin “posed a threat to other students when she made a shooting motion,” according to the report.
The only threat posed by Caitlin holding a wooden stick and pretending it’s a gun comes from the school resource officer who may or may not have begun firing with other students around.
“We know why it’s bad,” Miller told WTVD. “We watch the news, but then I have to tell my kid, ‘you’re not allowed to play like that in school because people do bad things to kids your age."”
Instead of apologizing or applying any rational thought whatsoever, the Hoke County school system is defending the policy, noting that they do “not tolerate assaults, threats or harassment from any student.”
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“Any student engaging in such behavior will be removed from the classroom or school environment for as long as is necessary to provide a safe and orderly environment for learning,” the school system told WTVD in a statement.
Sadly, when little Caitlin returned to school this Tuesday after her suspension, her mom said the other teachers and students are now alienating her over this ‘incident.’
This insane policy seems to be increasing in America. As the government and media keep everyone in a constant state of fear over relatively isolated incidents, policies like this one are enforced with extreme prejudice.
Just last year, another five-year-old girl was suspended from school for bringing a clear, plastic, princess-themed bubble gun to school because she likes bubbles.
“I appreciate that they’re trying to keep our kids safe, I really do. But there needs to be some common sense,” the unidentified mother said of the incident.
Before the bubble gun suspension, a child was not only suspended but arrested after writing an imaginative story about using a gun to shoot a dinosaur — seriously.
There is also the case of a 9-year-old Georgia boy who was suspended from school for bringing a green plastic nerf gun to school.
In fact, in 2013, Huffington Post listed six highly suspect suspensions for so-called fake weapons brought to school by young children.
A seven-year-old Maryland second-grader was suspended for nibbling a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. Another in the same state for a bright red cap gun — which, though the suspension was lifted, inexcusably remains on the student’s record. That student’s mother told the Washington Post her child was interrogated for two hours over the incident — which understandably scared him to the point he wet himself.
In Pennsylvania, a five-year-old girl caught a suspension for a bright pink-and-yellow Hello Kitty bubble gun. An eight-year-old in Florida was suspended — for playing cops and robbers. He pointed his finger at another student during the game, saying ‘pow pow.’
Perhaps most dystopically telling of all, two Virginia middle school students were suspended for a full year for playing with airsoft guns — at one of the student’s homes.
As Claire Bernish pointed out, this is what happens when a cowed culture allows the State to decide what’s best — as if we, as a people, somehow possibly couldn’t parse that out on our own. It’s ludicrous. It’s nonsensical. And it needs to be reined in before a single other kindergarten’s record is permanently tarnished because of cultural paranoia surrounding guns.
Education and rationality, not confiscation and wholly unjustified fear, is key to gun policy — and to generally helping the U.S. get a grip.
