Police shoots a 15 year old mental disabled kid

Labels: article, police violence
A 15-year-old student at Garfield Park, a private school for children with emotional or behavioral disorders, was shot twice after he threatened the police with a pair of scissors. The incident happened in front of the school. The boy was first threatening some school employees and also some students, before he ran out on the parking lot where he pointed two scissors at a police officer. He was asked to put his weapon down, and a witness said that she heard how they yelled ”put it down, put it down!” before the sound of two gunshots being fired. She said she went out to see what was going on and there she saw the victim lying on his side clutching his stomach. The officer that shot the boy, William Smith, was not injured. The shooting will be investigated according to the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office. The boy was reported in critical but stable condition at Cooper University Hospital, Camden. Carol Dunn had a similar incident with the police in New Jersey, where her son was shot by an officer outside a church because he refused to let go of the knife he was holding. "I think police should take every necessary step to save lives. This should be included in their training," she said. "Are they interested in taking lives or is the state of New Jersey interested in saving lives?"

unfortunately our police are becoming militarized.
That is sad.
It leads to crap like this. And they carry tazers, why?




see any similarity to what was once a police state?

That is so freakin stupid of the cop's!!!!
I really dislike them very much,,, They should go to prison for that!!!!!!!

There is more to this story, I'm sure. The cops did a job, to serve and PROTECT. The kid was welding a weapon around and they asked him to put it down. He could have been running towards them with it before he was shot for all we know. I'm sure they didn't know that much about the situation before they got there, but someone was scared enough to call them in the first place. *shrugs*

the kid is disabled for petes sake. a special needs child is not going to know all the time whats wrong and right. the police knew and they didnt give rats ass about it

What is the disability? They may not know what is wrong or right, but him trying to kill someone? Does that make it any better? How do you know the police knew something was wrong? Were you there?

Sounds like intentional suicide. The same thing happened to one of my good friends. I guess if your too chicken**** to do it yourself....have the cops do it for ya.

that's conjecture.. the last thing any police officer wants to do is shoot someone. hellkitten's right. the witness only heard the exchange, heard the police givethe command to put the weapon down which he apparently didn;t do. the cop is not obligated to take a knife ora pair of scissors in the chest before defending his own life..

the headline reads 'mentally disabled kid' but kids with behavioral issues are often violent. irrationally so.

it's sad that a child was shot but he's still alive.

A mentally challenged kid with a pair of butter knife scissors against a nine millimeter???????



Ahhhhhh........yeah. ok.



The cop made the right decision.

Rodney King?

A lot of judgemental people here who've watched one too many movies.

Hey!!!!!


I resent that!