Tyre King (c. 2003-2016), known as Tyree King in early police and press reports, is an American schoolboy who was gunned down by police this past Wednesday, at 7.45pm on September 14th 2016, in Columbus, Ohio. He was armed with a BB gun (airgun). He was Black, the killer cop was White.
Police say King’s gun looked just like a police gun and that he pulled it on them. Based on what we know so far, it seems more likely the police are lying than that a 13-year-old boy pulled a BB gun on police.
The family’s lawyers say “numerous” witness accounts conflict with the police account. Demetrius Braxton, King’s friend who was there, said King was running away when police shot him.
There is no video, at least not yet. Columbus police are allowed to carry guns without a body camera.
Note that police are fully capable of taking grown White men alive who shoot at them, like William Bruce Ray, age 62, and Robert Dear, age 57. But not, apparently, Black boys with BB guns, like Tamir Rice, age 12, and now Tyre King, age 13.
King was gunned down so quickly that the woman who called police was still on the line:
“Oh! He’s shooting them! Oh my God! They’re shooting! Oh my God!”
One witness heard three to five shots.
King, who has no criminal record, is suspected of armed robbery: witnesses say he robbed a White man of $10 at gunpoint. The White man thought King’s gun was a Ruger semi-automatic pistol. But even if a court of law had found all that to be true, King would not have received the death penalty.
Ron O’Brien, the county prosecutor, on that very night had refused to speak at an event about public safety and prosecutor accountability, hosted by Columbus People’s Partnership and the People’s Justice Project. After Tamir Rice was killed in 2014, and again last June when Henry Green was killed by Columbus police, the People’s Justice Project went to talk to O’Brien. Both times nothing happened.
O’Brien is the very man who will present the King case before a secret grand jury. But since the police are investigating themselves, he will be presenting what will most likely amount to a police cover-up.
Activists in Columbus want an independent investigation of police shootings.
Mayor Andrew Ginther says Columbus is “the safest big city in America”. So far this year there have been 13 police shootings, killing five people. One police officer has also been killed. The police killing of Henry Green last June led to protests.
Officer Bryan Mason, who killed King, has himself taken part in shootings in 2010, 2012, 2013, and now 2016. He has been on the force for nine years. King is the second person he has killed. He was cleared of any wrondoing in the past shootings. The police chief says Mason is good at following police policy. The head of the police union says he is a “really, really good officer.” He is on leave “to assist in recovery from a traumatic experience.”
– Abagond, 2016.
Update (September 21st): The official autopsy will not come out for another six weeks. In the meantime the family had an autopsy done. It shows that King was hit by three bullet and that most likely he was trying to run away. That backs up what his friend says and makes the police account seem even more unlikely. More at the Guardian.
See also:
- Police lies later refuted by video:
- Tamir Rice
- Walter Scott – the video even shows the police planting a gun!
- Sam Dubose
- Black BB gunmen in Ohio gunned down by police:
- White gunmen taken alive by police:
- Unarmed Black people killed by police: 2016, 2015, before 2015
- grand jury
- the police
572
Another mother is grieving and has to bury her child.
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I don’t believe the Ohio PD. They straddled the line with truth on the Tamir Rice case and now we have another teen dead. Black folks understand that pulling a gun on a police officer is suicide by cop. After Rice and Crawford I think every black child in Ohio above the age of 7 gets this.
The problem with police departments across the nation are numerous but one of the more egregious problems is our willingness to accept lies from them. A police officer’s trustworthiness can determine whether you go home to your family or you’re incarcerated.
We’ve seen with Walter Scott, Floyd Dent and many others that the departs will lie and that is absolutely unacceptable. I don’t care how difficult their job is it’s volunteer.
People think integrity as a behavior trait but it’s really more simple than that. Does the structure perform as designed. Law Enforcement has severe integrity issue and until that is rectified there will be constant sturm un drang between citizens and Law Enforcement.
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The officer who murdered this child has a record of multiple shootings and this is his second kill. He is a psychopath that needs to be fired, prosecuted and put away forever.
These recurring events break my heart. RIP Tyre King.
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Wow, after following your blog’s coverage of national issues for years it’s bizarre to see such familiar faces in this post.
We’ll be out again in front of Columbus city hall tomorrow to demand “reinvest funding from aggressive policing to programs that are proven to actually keep communities safe—drug treatment, violence prevention initiatives, and restorative justice programs.” Those wishing to can join in by signing our petition here: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/justice-for-tyre-new-priorities-for-columbus
No one pulls a fake gun on the cops. That story just doesn’t make any sense.
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This is reminiscent of young Tamir Rice and John Crawford especially with these fake guns in the narrative something is really fishy about this.
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“He is on leave “to assist in recovery from a traumatic experience.”
That’s rich. He guns down a child in cold blood and he’s “traumatized”!
Orwell was right.
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Does the line from the Shakespeare play Hamlet “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” be applied to this murder and all the other murders of black citizens by racist law enforcement?
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It will never end. Sweet dreams little one. X
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There’s just no excuse. I can’t stomach these events, and I can’t begin to imagine how anyone justifies murdering a child–or anyone else–who is not a genuine and immediate threat to public safety.
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Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
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It’s not going to end until the cops are given a damned good reason to end it. The events in Dallas and Baton Rouge may be a sign of things to come…
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And Ohio is an “open-carry” state — with or without a license.
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I have known 3 police officers in my life, well enough to know that 2 out of the 3 are racist. These same two men would spend their weekends drinking and driving, knowing that if they get pulled over if they flash their badge they are going to be given a free pass. Those that didn’t much care for the ones who disrespected their badge would still do it because it is part of the blue wall that protects all officers from prosecution and one day they themself may need that blue wall to protect them. If one officer vouches for another it is damn near impossible to get him prosecuted or indicted for anything.
The persona that cops don’t lie or do anything wrong is probably the biggest bunch of hogwash ever sold to the people of this country, people are just too stupid most of the time to see the elephant in the room. When white people want to believe something they’re going to do it no matter what common sense or reality tells them. They always believe cops are good and the dead unarmed Black kid in the street is a thug, no matter what. Every Time an unarmed person is shot by the police, that officer should be prosecuted accordingly, no excuses!
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I really dont understand how African Americans can live in such oppressive white racist society and not have such hatred toward white people. The thing that gets to me is watching whites and other non black poc justify the killing of these child.
Is there anything black parents can do to stop black children from getting killed?
The consolation I get from this, is that no one kills a child and suffer the emotional consequences that come from knowing that you kill a kid. And I hope that the King hunts the man.
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Update: The official autopsy will not come out for another six weeks. In the meantime the family had an autopsy done. It shows that King was hit by three bullets and that most likely he was trying to run away. That backs up what his friend says and makes the police account seem even more unlikely.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/19/tyre-king-shooting-columbus-police-examiner
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Leave the country. Emigrate to another nation that’s a bit more willing to show you and yours some respect, for once. But that’s not an option for many people, for various reasons.
The only alternative is to keep black children as far away from whites and white society as possible, to the point where whites suddenly ask themselves where all the black kids have gone before shrugging their shoulders and going on with their blindingly white routine in a blindingly white environment. Even then, you’ll have your whites who deliberately intrude in black spaces for fun and sport.
Either disengage from white society or leave the country altogether. Those are your only non-violent options.
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