Teen Shot & Killed After Pointing FAKE Gun At Cop !!!

[David]

Yes, folks, I think we have yet another Darwin Award winner...

From ap.org:

LA Teen Pointing Fake Gun at Officer Shot, Killed by Police
09/24/2003

The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A 16-year-old boy was shot and killed by a police officer after running from a vehicle taken in a carjacking and pointing a fake gun at the officer, authorities said.

Max McDaniel died late Monday evening two hours after he was shot by Officer Michael Villareal in the Harbor City area, police and coroner's officials said.

A replica of a stainless steel handgun was recovered at the scene, and authorities said it matched the description of the weapon used in the hijacking of the luxury car that night.

Police were in pursuit of the vehicle when it pulled into an apartment complex driveway, and occupants scattered in various directions, said Officer Renee Montoya, a Police Department spokeswoman.

Montoya said Villareal told investigators that McDaniel emerged from the car with "what appeared to be a stainless steel pistol in his hand" and ran toward the officer, who was outside his patrol car.

The boy pointed the replica gun at the officer after Villareal ordered him to drop his weapon, and Villareal feared for his life and shot him, Montoya said.

The district attorney's office and police are looking into the shooting by the Harbor Division officer, an eight-year veteran.

Leo Terrell, an attorney for McDaniel's family, said he would push for a comprehensive investigation and order an autopsy.
******
Also, I think it is just as amazing that the family of this teen ALREADY has a high-profile attorney calling for a "comprehensive invesigation."

 

[C.R.Sam]

From the scant information given...
Looks to me like a very good shoot.

Sam

 

[Baba Louie]

I hope that Officer Villareal wasn't hurt and isn't hurt in the upcoming debacles aftermath, but I'd say he did and said the right things.

Kudo's to Villareal for living to fight (er, protect and serve) another day.

Order an autopsy? Must be SOP but suicide by Cop doesn't show up as something other than terminal stupidity as far as I know. Dead is dead.

Adios

 

[4v50 Gary]

Neither the first kid nor the last to be dumb enough to point a replica gun at a cop. It'll happen again.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

Leo Terrell, an attorney for McDaniel's family, said he would push for a comprehensive investigation and order an autopsy.

Does this moron think he needs to "push" for an investigation and autopsy? I'm surprised he hasn't already filed lawsuits against the toy gun manufacturer, the store that sold it and the driver of the carjacked automobile for allowing a 16 year old to drive off with his vehicle.

 

[Standing Wolf]

The boy pointed the replica gun at the officer after Villareal ordered him to drop his weapon, and Villareal feared for his life and shot him...

Never show up for a gun fight with a fake gun.

People who don't know any more than they've seen on television must be even dumber than I've believed all these years. They seem to think life is just a drama with interludes for commercials. They seem to think fake is as good as real. They seem to think acting tough amounts to toughness. They seem to believe it's all just entertainment.

It's bad enough to waste a life, but worse to waste it completely stupidly.

 

[10-Ring]

The teen was using the gun to commit violent crimes on the street of LA & pointed it at a police officer. At that point, that gun was very real!

 

[Moparmike]

Ok, I thought they banned toy guns somewhere. I thought it was LA or something.

Yep, suicide by cop.

 

[greyhound]

Leo Terrell, an attorney for McDaniel's family, said he would push for a comprehensive investigation and order an autopsy.

Money,money, money, money,... MONEY!

 

[XLMiguel]

Darwinated, fer sure. Too bad Darwination cdoesn't go back a couple generations.

 

[jrhead75]

The teen was using the gun to commit violent crimes on the street of LA & pointed it at a police officer. At that

Exactly! I just hope the officer comes through this without being run through the meat grinder.

Chalk another one up for Darwin.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

MoparMike, the banned toy guns were either in Carrolton or Farmers Branch, Texas, but located just north of Dallas.

 

[Tamara]

Pointing fake guns at people who have real guns is a good way to get yourself shot.


You know, I have to wonder what, if anything, Junior was thinking when he threw down with his toy gun. What did he expect the officers to do? Was he planning on yelling "bang!" if they didn't do it?

 

[RustyHammer]

Tank-et-tee tank, Tank-et-tee tank, Tank-et-tee tank .......

Fake handgun, fake tank .... which wins?

Darwin Award for sure.

/Rusty

 

[son of a gun]

There was this one instance where a kid pulled out a Three Musketeers candy bar and the cops shot him, they thought it was a chrome semi-auto pistol.

 

[TheeBadOne]

I just hope the officer comes through this without being run through the meat grinder.

Agreed, but unfortunately I can assure you there will be a lawsuit against the officer/city, there always is.

 

[Bruegger]

Officer acted 100% correctly. Formula: felony stop + felon points something at you that looks exactly like a real gun = shoot, then assess. If you wait to closely examine and function check to see if it's a replica, the next time your family will see you, you'll be lying on a slab.

Some toy guns look like the real thing. Had a recent experience with this.

I out walking one early evening and almost drew down on a teenager armed with a pistol. He was walking in my general direction and making threats and gestures towards another teenager parallel to, but across the street from me, and drew the previously-concealed pistol from his waistband.

Fortunately, in about two or three seconds I realized what was really going on. He had an AirSoft gun and must have been acting out something from a movie, because at that point, it didn't look like they were playing around. A couple of seconds later, the two kids were laughing and shooting their airsoft guns at each other (with no eye protection - the morons!).

Had his attention been focused on me and had he pointed the "gun" in my direction, I'm not sure I would have waited the two or three seconds that I did.

 

[jimpeel]

You need read no further than "Leo Terrell".

This is the most angry, hostile, abusive, loud Black man I have ever seen. Hannity and Colmes have a nasty habit of having him on their show and I invariably turn the channel as soon as they introduce him. He is a racist hack of the worst kind and I pity anyone who has to deal with him at any level.

http://www.leoterrell.com

 

[Daniel T]

There are a lot of times that I will question the validity of a police shooting, but not this one. This one is dead-on stupid obvious.

Litigious wankers.

 

[son of a gun]

Air gun from Kmart looks too real, cops say

Prosecutor says it bears close resemblance to 9mm Beretta
August 8, 2001

http://www.freep.com/news/metro/gun8_20010808.htm

I have one I like to shoot at the tv when certain individuals are on.
BY BEN SCHMITT
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER



Franz Micakovic's blood boiled when he saw his 14-year-old son come out of his bedroom holding what appeared to be a real handgun.


"I said, 'What the hell are you doing with that gun?' " Micakovic said Tuesday. "Andrew looks at me, points the gun my way and says, 'Dad, it's just a toy.' "


It turns out that the apparent 9mm handgun was a Powerline Airstrike 240 air gun. Andrew bought it from a Kmart store in Warren. The air gun shoots plastic .24-caliber pellets. Still, Micakovic took it to the Center Line Police Department a few weeks ago where an officer, in turn, thought it was a real gun.


"I'm not against BB guns. I'm not against real guns when they're used properly," said Micakovic of Center Line. "But you don't make something that realistic and give it to a kid without parental supervision."


Kmart officials said Tuesday that the store on 10 Mile and Dequindre Road slipped up in selling the $17.95 air gun to a customer younger than 18. They alerted all stores in Michigan to make sure the new product is entered into a computer system so cashiers are prompted to ask for ID when they scan the gun.


"This is the first time we've heard of this," said Michele Jasukaitis, a spokeswoman for Kmart Corp., which stopped selling handgun ammunition in June in its 2,100 stores nationwide. "But we want parents to know that we do have a policy requiring customers to be 18 to purchase air guns here."

Macomb County Prosecutor Carl Marlinga said he was partially satisfied by the explanation. Marlinga had issued a countywide notification letter last week to all police departments about the product. He said his other concern remains that the air gun looks too much like a real Beretta 9mm handgun.


"I'm not saying it's illegal, I just think it's incredibly bad judgment for a company to make something so realistic," Marlinga said. "We're just letting police departments know that the company made this blunder in putting out this very realistic gun. We expect this thing to show up as a weapon in some holdup at some time."


William Harding, chief of operations at the Macomb County Prosecutor's Office, has another fear.


"
If a kid pulled it out, a police officer would have to draw and shoot," he said. "The weapon is so positively realistic."


The Powerline product is manufactured by Daisy Outdoor Products in Rogers, Ark. In a statement released Tuesday, Daisy officials stressed that the product is a gun, not a toy.


"The Powerline brand is our line of air rifles and pistols for adults and shooters over 16 years of age with adult supervision," said Joe Murfin, Daisy director of marketing. "Many air guns have features and appearances that are very similar to firearms. That is because they are often used by those who shoot firearms and expect their air guns to look and work in a similar fashion."


Marlinga's office learned of the air gun after Center Line police Detective Robert Plotzke brought it to their attention.


Plotzke said he traveled to several Kmart stores in the area before he could find such an air gun in stock because stores were selling out.


"Whether Kmart should or should not be selling the weapon is certainly not up for me to decide," Plotzke said Tuesday. "I just want parents to have this information so they can discuss this in their families."






Contact BEN SCHMITT at 810-469-8087 or [email protected].

 

[4v50 Gary]

I gotta go by Kmart and buy myself an airgun.

 

[Zedicus]

I have one I like to shoot at the tv when certain individuals are on.

Me to dude

Nothing like plinking at idiots that you take a dislikeing to on the tv, and not having to buy a new tv...

 

[HogRider]

That guy deserved to get shot. It's just like cleaning up the gene pool!

 

[Trempel]

A few years back I almost fired on two teenagers who were armed with air guns, the fact that was later discovered.
I saw them walking through my back yard and up the hill behind my house. I told the other occupants of the house to hide in the rooms facing the street and I grabbed my revolver. While I was on the phone to 911, I was watching them the whole time as they were slowly walking away. I made sure to hide behind a cabinet next to the window. A couple of minutes later, a cop shows up at my door. I left my weapon in another room and walked out to talk to the cop. As we are in the back yard and I'm showing him the direction in which the pair were headed, I see them running at full sprint back down the hill, back towards the houses. WEAPONS IN HAND. The cop pushed me back into the house with one hand, while drawing his pistol with the other. By the time he yelled for them to "drop it and get down on the ground", they were already back on my property. The two morons complied and ate the dirt just as the reason for them to be running back appeared. The local PD, knowing the area very well, sent two more cops to the other side of the hill to intercept. One had his pistol drawn and the other had a shotgun in her hands. The cops searched them and determined that guns that the punks were carrying where replicas, and not the real deal. Luckily, nobody got shot.
The morons' mom, who turned out to be a neighboor from a few houses down, came out screaming "What are you doing to my boys?!" The cops compared their own weapons to the air guns just to show the "mother of the year" that the pellet guns look just like the real thing.
Twenty minutes after the cops let the two morons go home to clean they soiled pants, I got a visit from their mom. She started going on about how it was just a toy and I shouldn't have called the cops and the air guns were a present from their grandpa, etc. I cut her off and told her that she's lucky that I'm not trigger-happy, because the 357 Mag that I had upstairs is not a toy and her sons being on my property could've represented a real threat to my life. She left right after I said that.

 

[semf]

If you're gonna be dumb you better be tough