15 year old boy killed by OPD

[leanos]

No one desrves to die, no matter how much of an idiot they are. Death is just a consequences of dumb decisions.

I disagree. If a man, and or teen walks down the streets of Oakland w/ a firearm, the police have the moral and professional duty to stop the threat.

If the man or teen points a weapon, the cops must shoot to kill.

My kid brother is a Sheriff, and I often think about the dangers of his job...
To hell w/ the perp!

[aplinker]

This is not the reason for not shooting him in the leg. If the gun is pointed at you, the police officer is shooting them to prevent the perpetrator from killing them. The ONLY way to do this is to end them. Period. It's sad, but it's the truth.

To Leelaw: I can see why you'd think there's spin in the title... feels like it was for no reason. But it's the minimal factual statement. A kid was killed by OPD. The reason is in the post.

Yeah, maybe they would have hit his femoral artery. Idiot.

Well as quick as others are to pile on coppers whenever theres a shooting without knowing all the facts, I'm gonna go ahead pile on the kid with the gun. He had it coming.

[Fjold]

That's not a 15 year old "boy", it's a 15 year old attempted murderer who got killed in the act.

Kudus to the OPD for handling it in a professional manner.

[Saigon1965]

When you pull it out, you shoot to kill.

[odesskiy]

Another case of Darwin in action... Stupid decisions = stupid death.

[50 Freak]

seems like we are condemning this boy too quickly. I'd like to hear more about the story, I'd like to see the sawed off rifle.

15 seems like to me an age where you do dumb things. Come-on we all did it when we were 15, but is that enough justification to be killed?

I pray for that kid's family and the family of the officers involved in the shooting. Gotta be a tough time on all sides.

[cartman]

seems like we are condemning this boy too quickly. I'd like to hear more about the story, I'd like to see the sawed off rifle.

15 seems like to me an age where you do dumb things. Come-on we all did it when we were 15, but is that enough justification to be killed?

I pray for that kid's family and the family of the officers involved in the shooting. Gotta be a tough time on all sides.

Um yeah! If someone points a gun at me no matter how old they are thats all the justification I need.

[CSDGuy]

You shoot to stop the threat. LEO's are trained to shoot to stop the threat. Stopping the threat in the least hazardous manner to bystanders is USUALLY shooting for COM. If the threat dies, the threat is stopped. If the threat stops but does not die, then the same desired result of a stopped threat is achieved.

There are situations where stopping the threat requires a brain-stem shot because anything else will result in more injury or death to others. That shot instantly removes the body's ability to move. It also WILL result in a fatality.

In this case, at first blush, it sounds like the OPD officers did what they had to do, nothing more. They stopped the threat. It's sad that the subject of that threat died.

[dustoff31]

15 seems like to me an age where you do dumb things. Come-on we all did it when we were 15, but is that enough justification to be killed?

Yes, many of us did do a lot of dumb things when we were 15. But I don't remember myself or any of my friends ever walking down the street with a rifle in our drawers. Much less pointing one at a cop.

There is dumb, and then there is just stupid.

[Teletiger7]

Someone didn't teach that kid right. This all goes back to poor parenting.

[redcliff]

"Relatives, friends and neighbors of Buenrostro who gathered Wednesday evening at 79th Avenue and Rudsdale Street, gave a starkly different account of the incident and questioned officers' level of force.

They set out candles, roses and spilled beer on the sidewalk as part of a makeshift memorial for the 15-year-old whose blood still stained the sidewalk. Neighborhood children rode by on scooters and mothers pushed babies in strollers.

"He was walking down the street and the cops stopped and 'bam-bam' shot him up without even telling him anything," said Jesse Gonzalez, who said he was Buenrostro's cousin.

"We want to see the gun he supposedly had," said Claudia Zepeda, another cousin, whose voice faltered with emotion. "I want to see his thumbprints on it. Why didn't they talk to him, why did they have to kill him?""

Seems like there are two sides to the story. I certainly tend to believe the officers wouldn't have shot unless he pointed the rifle at them, but it does need to be investigated more.

[rue]

Seems like on this forum someone posts a story like this and then there is a 10 page thread with one side vs. the other. Personally it's getting old to me. People shouldn't automatically form an opinion without having all the facts IMO. I see both sides of the arguement jumping on the bandwagon without knowing what flavor the kool-aid is yet.
I personally was involved in a similar situation as a kid (minus the rifle in my pants) but I was walking down the road in a rural town with a 10/22 at about the same age. A CHP pulled up behind us opened the door and posted behind it like it was a shield and pulled his gun on us and started screaming orders to drop the gun. Now we were walking home from target shooting in the middle of nowhere and weren't doing anything wrong and in a small town not a city and this cop freaked out on us. Nothing happened since I had the gun and came from a family that respected LE and I complied carefully but I'll never forget how much that cop yelled at us and tried to justify his overreaction to a kid with a .22 rifle. Nobody had called it in he only stopped because he was "concerned" for "public safety". Just something to think about before you form an opinion. Only the people involved really know what happened and as everyone can see from watching the recent Iggy video the media isn't exactly factual at all.

[Shane916]

Amen to that!

[SVT-40]

Having been involved with the use of deadly force myself I can tell you all. This is a tragedy for all involved. The officers will forever carry this with them. I would bet everything that not one single officer who was involved in this incident is happy with it's end. They may be relieved that they and their fellow officers were not injured or killed, but I guarantee they are not happy. Even if they did the only thing they could do to end the situation. They are not happy.

The family of the suspect will be forever bitter, and will hate law enforcement. Some will use this incident to try and drive a wedge between the people and the police.

In the end life will go on and politicians and pundits will look for someone to blame.....

It's a shame because most will not lay blame where blame should be laid, and that's at the feet of the parents who probably had an idea what their son was doing, and was involved with. But it is themselves who chose to not make waves and not confront their son and his behavior before it came to him confronting the police on the street with a illegal weapon.

I say shame on them, but at the same time I have compassion for their loss. Maybe others will see the absolute waste this type of preventable incident is.

All of us should look inside ourselves and hold our children responsible for their actions so in the future we don't suffer the same loss.

Love your children and friends. But hold them accountable for their actions. You are doing them the biggest favor you can.

[leelaw]

I disagree.

The title is misleading because it leaves out the important detail that the suspect was shot because he pointed a firearm at OPD officers.

The title isn't misleading by adding false or coercive information, but the omission of the above very important detail causes it to be misleading.

"Man Shoots 16 Year Old Boy" is very different than "Homeowner Shoots Burglar" and shows media spin, IMHO. Your opinion may differ, but that's how I see it.