Wednesday, August 10, 2016

14 year old Latino Boy shot fatally by Police in Los Angeles

By Douglas V. Gibbs
AuthorSpeakerInstructorRadio Host

The boy had been seen earlier working out at the gym.  When police arrived, he was tagging with other teenagers suspected of being members of a local gang.

In Boyle Heights, a community near downtown Los Angeles, a teenage boy was fatally shot by police.  The police were firing at the gun-wielding suspect who had fired first.  The police were responding to a vandalism and possible narcotics call.  The 14 year old was allegedly a gang-member, and was tagging gang-style graffiti when the police arrived.  He fled, and fired upon the police.  A loaded firearm, a decades-old revolver, was retrieved at the scene.

Jesse Romero was two weeks away from his 15th birthday.  

Other youths had fled the scene when the police arrived.  Investigators are looking into whether or not the shots fired at police came from the revolver.  Investigators are also viewing the footage from the body cameras that were worn by the police officers who were in pursuit of Romero.

The rising rate of crime in Boyle Heights, it is believed, is largely due to local gang activity.  In the region there are 34 gangs police keep an eye on, four of which are violent and active in the area of the shooting.

Nobody else was reported to have sustained injuries during the incident.

Romero is the 12th fatally shot suspect this year.  15 persons have been shot in total, this year.

Family members denied that Jesse was involved in gangs, and blamed police for not using restraint. "It was not right for them to do what they did or kill him  That’s why they are trained as police officers. Not to kill him," said the boy's mother.

One witness claimed the young man didn't fire at officers. "He pulled a handgun from his waistband and threw it toward a fence," the witness said.  The gun hit the fence and fell onto the ground, and she heard the weapon fire, she said.

At that moment, she said the runner turned around and appeared startled. She heard two more gunshots and the runner fell to the ground, she said. Moments later, officers placed handcuffs on him, she said.

“He didn’t shoot,” the woman said of the runner.

As a gun owner, and gun enthusiast, I can tell you that likely the witness's report of the gun firing because it hit the ground is false.  Firearms are designed not to fire in that manner.  It normally requires the squeezing of the trigger.  Since the firearm was a revolver, it is possible the boy had already pulled back the hammer, which could have caused it to fire if it hit the ground just right.  Even then, however, the trigger is normally required to fire the firearm.

One person interviewed commented that the violence is escalating in the area.

The ACLU of Southern California released a statement complaining that the body camera footing was not immediately made public.  The Los Angeles Police Department does not release video footage during an investigation.

The search for a non-biased jury would be near impossible if the footage was released immediately and the leftists media began to manipulate their stories on the footage to protect the liberal left narrative.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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