A police officer from Cleveland shot and killed a 12-year-old boy that was wielding a toy gun that seemed like an authentic deadly weapon.
The shooting happened as the country nervously awaited the decision of the grand jury if charges will made against the officer that killed then unarmed African-American Michael Brown in an incident in Ferguson, Missouri, last August.
However, the lawyer for the Cleveland boy's family, who was also black, ruled out all possible racial undertones connected to the death of the child.
"This is not a black and white issue. This is a right and wrong issue," said the lawyer, Tim Kucharski.
The police responded to a 911 call that reported that there was a person, which looked like a juvenile, pointing a weapon to people at a recreation center.
"There's a guy in there with a pistol, you know, it's probably fake, but he's like pointing it at everybody," reported the caller.
The caller reported that the person with the gun was on a swing, and was pulling out the weapon from his pants to point it at passing people.
When two police officers arrived at the scene, the boy did not threaten them or pointed the gun at them, according to Ed Tomba, the Cleveland Division of Police Deputy Chief.
However, Tomba said, the boy tried reaching for the gun. The police officers told him to stop and to reveal that his hands were empty, but the boy still continued and took out the gun.
The boy was shot in his stomach. He sustained the injury early on Sunday, and succumbed to the gunshot wound shortly afterwards.
Tomba revealed to reporters what the weapon was, which turned out to be a large replica gun that looked like an authentic semiautomatic pistol. The orange tip, which usually indicates that a weapon was not real but an air gun, was missing from the weapon.
Details have not been made clear on whether the responding officers were told that the weapon was a toy gun and not a real one. Both police officers have now been placed on administrative leave.
Tomba was battered with angry questions during the press conference, as accusations of unnecessary police brutality surfaced with the shooting of Brown still on the minds of the public.
Tomba, however, defended his officers in stating that they were only doing their job, but added that it what happened was a "very, very tragic situation."
