...but only because he was playing with the toy gun in a Verona, Italy park and not the United States of America. Read this:
A boy wearing a hooded top and playing with a toy gun in a public garden in Verona sent jitters among those living in the area.
Amid heightened fears over terrorism, people who saw the 13-year-old from the windows of surrounding buildings thought the gun was real, and so didn’t waste any time in calling the police, Corriere reported
In turn, the police wasted no time in getting to the garden, immediately surrounding the potential assailant.
But when they told him to drop his weapon and lie down, he refused.
At this point, most American police — certainly those in Cleveland — would have shot the boy dead. Remember, Tamir wasn’t even given a chance to drop his “gun” and lie down. He was shot instantaneously.
After killing the young boy, the police would subsequently claim to have “feared for their lives,” and faced no consequences.
For this 13-year old, however, things worked out differently.
A few minutes later, they realised the gun was a toy and that the boy was wearing his hood to shelter from the rain.
Imagine if Tamir had been given a “few minutes” to respond to the situation. Imagine if the police in Cleveland had taken a “few minutes” to consider whether or not Tamir represented a true threat. But, no, America’s shoot-first-ask-questions-later policing culture murdered Tamir.
As the story of this Italian youngster shows, however, police can behave responsibly.
Just not, it seems, in the United States of America.