LOS ANGELES – Since a 13-year-old boy armed with an airsoft pistol was shot in Dec. 2010 by a Los Angeles police officer who mistakenly believed he had a real 9mm Beretta, L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck has led the charge to beef up regulation of imitation firearms.
“This is a tragedy for all involved, but in particular for the young man injured in this police shooting and for the officer who believed that he was protecting himself and his partner from a real threat,” Beck said in support of the Imitation Firearms Safety Act, which would require manufacturers to paint the exteriors of BB and airsoft guns with bright colors.
Rohayent “Ryan” Gomez, who had been playing cops and robbers with his airsoft gun when Officer Victor Abarca shot him, survived his injuries from the shooting in the Glassell Park neighborhood of Los Angeles but was left paralyzed. After Gomez sued Abarca and the City of Los Angeles for negligence and battery, a jury awarded him $24 million in damages in Dec. 2012, but the city has appealed.
Following a similar police shooting in Santa Rosa, Calif. that killed 13-year-old Andy Lopez in October, state Sen. Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) said he plans to reintroduce the imitation firearms safety bill early next year. An initial effort ran into stiff opposition from the National Rifle Association and manufacturers in 2011, failing to get out of a state Assembly committee.
“When officers must make split second decisions on whether or not to use deadly force, these replica firearms can trigger tragic consequences,” de León said in a Nov. 22 news release.
It’s tactics, not toys
But a MintPress investigation suggests that focusing on imitation gun manufacturers may be a simplistic approach to preventing such tragedies in the future, and that the shootings of youngsters like Ryan Gomez may have more to do with police officers who fail to follow proper procedures than manufacturers whose products are too realistic.
“You just can’t get away from the tactics” of the officer who shot Gomez, said Roger Clark, a retired L.A. County sheriff’s lieutenant who testified as a use-of-force expert on behalf of Gomez. “With the right tactics, this would not have happened.”
The award to Gomez — which a judge later reduced to $22 million — is believed to be the largest sanction ever against the Los Angeles Police Department for a single event, and perhaps the largest of any kind against the department. Abarca was an “unreasonable” police officer who did not “follow the rules,” Gomez’s attorney, Arnoldo Casillas, had told the jury.
Police officers are “empowered by all of us to protect and serve,” he said. “But we’re not going to give them ‘carte blanche.’ We’re not going to say, ‘You know what, it’s the Wild West. Go take care of this.’”
According to trial testimony, the confrontation between Gomez and Officer Abarca occurred only two days after the boy’s mother bought him the airsoft pistol. Gomez, a tuba player and soccer enthusiast, testified during the nine-day trial that a friend had suggested they “buy some toy guns so we could shoot at targets, like plastic bottles and everything.” The airsoft shot plastic pellets, and in compliance with a federal safety law, had a blaze orange plug on its tip.
On the evening of Dec. 16, 2010, Gomez and two friends went into their neighborhood to play cops and robbers with their fake guns. “I was the police,” Gomez testified. That innocent game, however, took a tragic turn after a real-life police officer patrolling the area with his partner spotted Gomez on the street and exited his vehicle.
Abarca testified that a few minutes earlier, he had stopped a known street gang member on a bicycle four blocks away near where gang graffiti had been freshly painted. Gomez, he said, went behind a parked van, did not comply when ordered to show his hands, and moved “furtively,” making the officer suspicious that he “may be involved with that other guy” he had pulled over on the bike. “Gang members, normally they attract younger individuals into the gang,” he explained to the jury.
Once Gomez stepped out from behind the van, Abarca said, he could see the boy was wearing a “big bulky sweater” and had one hand “pressed against his abdomen.” As Gomez took one or two more steps, Abarca told him to show his hands and, according to his testimony, saw the barrel and handle of a gun “moving toward my direction.”
“Once the gun came out … it was, like, no more commands,” Abarca recalled. “The gun just moved and he was shot … I just went into a frenzy thinking all the other stuff that was going to happen if I allowed his action to continue.”
The bullet from Abarca’s service weapon entered Gomez’s shoulder and traveled downward into his spine, causing the paralyzing injury. Abarca said he knew “gang members have killed police officers in the past” and it went through his mind, “Oh my God, he’s going to kill me.”
The city’s use-of-force expert, LAPD Sgt. Harry Markel, testified that Abarca could not be expected to determine in a split second whether Gomez was carrying an airsoft gun or a 9mm Beretta, and that LAPD officers are trained to assume that all guns are real. “It’s a very serious topic when we’re talking about … confronting suspects with guns, whether they’re real guns or replica guns or toy guns,” he said.
But the jury deliberated for only a few hours before finding that Abarca had used excessive force and was negligent in deciding to shoot Gomez. Clark had testified that the officer erred by, among other things, exiting his patrol vehicle and approaching the parked van. “What is key here is that there was ample opportunity to use the vehicle for cover so that the time and opportunity would then evolve to know this is a toy gun, this is a youngster,” he said.
If Abarca had followed correct police procedures and positioned himself correctly to handle the situation, in other words, he would have avoided any need to make a “split-second” decision. “This is not a case where he should have [used] lethal force,” Clark told MintPress in an interview. “The use of lethal force is of such enormity that you have to be sure what you’re doing. If you’re not sure, you can’t shoot.”
Police shoot another child “armed” with a toy
On Oct. 22, nearly three years after the shooting of Ryan Gomez, Andy Lopez was shot dead on a Santa Rosa street by Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Erick Gelhaus, who had apparently mistaken his electric airsoft gun for an AK-47 assault rifle. As in Gomez’s case, the tragedy has been blamed on the realism of imitation firearms.
In a news release, police said Gelhaus and his partner encountered Lopez on a Santa Rosa street and “immediately recognized that the subject was carrying what appeared to be an assault-style rifle.” Ten seconds after alerting dispatch to a “suspicious person,” the officers reported shots had been fired. During those critical moments, police said, one of the deputies shouted at Lopez to “put the gun down.” As the boy turned toward Deputy Gelhaus, “the barrel of the assault rifle was rising up and turning in his direction.”
Gelhaus shot Lopez, police said, because he “feared for his safety, the safety of his partner, and the safety of the community members in the area. He believed the subject was going to shoot at him or his partner.”
But Lopez’s parents have hired Gomez’s attorney to represent them in a wrongful-death suit against Gelhaus and Sonoma County. The shooting, they allege, was “absolutely unjustified” and “a senseless and unwarranted act of police abuse.” They said the deputies never identified themselves as police officers and Lopez never pointed the gun at them.
As he did in the Gomez case, Clark questions the tactics of law enforcement, saying 10 seconds was not enough time for the Sonoma County officers to properly assess the situation. “That 10 seconds is going to be very important in the case,” he said. “What was it that made the officers act so quickly? How could [Lopez] comply with what they wanted to do in that short period of time?”
The Lopez shooting has renewed calls for the legislation Chief Beck has been supporting that would require distinctive markings on imitation firearms. But Clark believes such a bill would not necessarily address the fundamental reasons why police officers — who should be experts in distinguishing between real and imitation firearms — end up shooting youngsters like Ryan Gomez.
“Why are our police so trigger-happy?” Clark asked. “Why don’t we address that?”