BREAKING: Before BLM Gets It TWISTED – Here Are the Facts on Tyree King Being Shot by Police [VIDEO]

15 Sep, 2016 by Cassy Fiano

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You may soon be hearing the name Tyree King in the news a lot. And that’s because King, a 13 year-old boy, was shot and killed by Columbus police. Black Lives Matter activists are almost certainly mobilizing to protest the shooting, so before they have a chance to twist the facts, find out what really happened.

Columbus police responded to a call for an armed robbery, involving multiple suspects. When they arrived, the victim of the robbery told them that a group of people approached him demanding money — and one of them had a gun. They spotted three suspects matching the description given by the victim and tried to question them. But the suspects fled on foot and police followed them into an alley. That’s when things went south.

When the officers attempted to take the suspects into custody, one of them pulled a gun from his waistband. One of the officers responded as expected — he took out his own gun and fired at the suspect multiple times. That suspect was 13 year-old Tyree King.

The detail that BLM activists will almost certainly hone in on is that it was later discovered that the weapon King was carrying was a BB gun with an attached laser sight. BB guns are not lethal weapons, so that means the shooting wasn’t justified. Right?

Except there is one little problem with that line of thinking. This:

That is a Sig Sauer 1911 model BB gun with an attached laser sight. It isn’t clear what exact model BB gun King was carrying, but that picture gives you an idea of what it would have looked like. It looks like a real gun, police had just responded to an armed robbery and were pursuing King and another male as suspects in that robbery when King pulled out the BB gun that looks alarmingly like a real gun.

This isn’t an example of police brutality against black men. It’s a tragedy that shouldn’t have happened, but not because police did something wrong. It’s a tragedy that a child was killed. It’s a tragedy that Tyree King somehow got caught up in a bad crowd at 13 that had him participating in armed robberies. It’s a tragedy that Tyree King made the mistake of pulling a BB gun on police. It may have been a justified shooting, but that doesn’t make it any less tragic.

Tyree King was still a young boy. The brains of teenagers are not finished developing; they are literally incapable of weighing the consequences of their actions, of thinking logically. This is why you see so many teenagers behaving impulsively. It’s something beyond their control. Was King wrong for what he did? Of course he was, but it’s important to remember that he was just a child. And the officer who killed him will forever have to live with the knowledge that he shot and killed a child. It may not be an example of police brutality, but that doesn’t mean it’s something to be callous or celebratory about. A child died. No matter the circumstances, that is always a tragedy.