A 13-year-old boy was shot by a police officer in Baltimore today after officers saw him carrying what they thought was a semi-automatic handgun, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis told reporters, including the Baltimore Sun. The gun, seen in a photograph released by police above, turned out to only be a replica.
The officers saw the boy in East Baltimore around 4 p.m. and identified themselves as cops, which is when the boy started running away, according to police. He did not drop the replica gun. One officer fired and struck the boy, but he's expected to survive the injury, police said.
The commissioner also told reporters that he had no reason to think the officers "acted inappropriately in any way." The boy's mother told investigators that she knew her son had left their home with what she called a BB gun.
WBAL reporter Jayne Miller had some details from a witness that weren't mentioned at the commissioner's news conference.
The shooting comes on the same day that an event was being held in Baltimore to mark one year since the riots that came after the death of Freddie Gray while he was in police custody there. Six officers are currently charged in Gray's death.
It's also only two days after Cleveland agreed to pay $6 million to settle a lawsuit with the family of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy who was shot to death by police in that city while holding a pellet gun.
