Dedric Colvin: Baltimore teen shot by police 'told officers gun was fake'

Police commissioner stressed how 'life-like' the gun seems during a press conference

McKim Community Center Justin Fenton/Twitter

A 14-year-old boy is in recovery a day after being shot by Baltimore Police who incorrectly identified a replica handgun he was holding as a real firearm.

Dedric Colvin suffered what police commissioner Kevin Davis called non-life-threatening injuries on a “lower extremity.” According to Mr Davis, the two detectives drove by the teen, who they said was carrying a basketball and the gun – a Daisy Powerline 340 air pistol – while walking outside the McKim Center in East Baltimore.

Police reportedly exited their vehicles and identified themselves when the young Colvin ran. The foot chase lasted approximately 150 feet (45 metres) before one detective shot the fleeing teenager. The Baltimore Sun reported that Colvin had a gunshot wound on the back of his leg.

Justifying the policeman’s actions, the commissioner stressed how realistic the pistol the boy was holding appeared.

“I looked at it myself today, I stood right over top of it, I put my own eyes on it,” he said to press shortly after the incident. “It’s an absolute, identical replica semi-automatic pistol. Those police officers had no way of known that it was not, in fact, and actual firearm.”

However, a witness account suggests the detective did have an opportunity to realise the gun was a replica.

“[Colvin] turned towards them but he wasn’t turning the gun towards them, and I’m positive I heard him say, ‘It’s not real,’” a witness who only identified himself as “Bryan” told a local NBC affiliate. “He said, ‘It’s not real. It’s not real,’ and that quick, the male officer shot him twice in the leg.”

The claim that Colvin was apparently telling officers that the gun was fake has led to suggestions that officers responded too quickly.

“This speaks to the fact that a young black male was never given the chance to be innocent,” local activist and artist Kwame Rose told The Independent. “[He was] automatically criminalised and automatically feared by police.”

Mr Rose addressed the need for “heavy investment” in training in de-escalation tactics for Baltimore Police. “Shooting should never be the first action.”

Mr Rose pointed out that Wednesday’s incident sounded remarkably similar to the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by a Cleveland Police officer. Rice was holding a replica gun and was shot in the stomach mere seconds after police arrived.

“The only difference between this case and the Tamir Rice case … is that Dedric ran – which probably saved his life,” Mr Rose added.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Volanda Young, Colvin’s mother, reportedly pleaded with police to confirm whether or not her son was alive. According to the Sun, Ms Young was placed in handcuffs, taken to the station, where she said police officers questioned her, and put her in a cell for being “belligerent.”

“I begged them to take me [to the hospital]” where Colvin was being held, she told the Sun.

In a Thursday afternoon press conference, Baltimore Police presented the press with two “identical” guns, only one was a replica, while the other was an actual firearm.

Under US law, “look-alike” firearms – such as toy guns – require a blaze orange plug “permanently affixed” on the barrel. But the law excludes “traditional BB, paint-ball, or pellet-firing airguns” that use air pressure to fire a projectile.

Joe Murfin, a spokesperson for Daisy, the brand of Colvin’s air pistol, said that these guns are not toys, but should be treated as though they are actual firearms.

“They require the same amount of respect you would give a firearm,” he said. “The American Society for Testing and materials stipulates that airguns are to be marked with a warning [that they are not toys]. … Beyond that, there’s a warning that’s been on [the guns] that say, ‘Don’t brandish this in public.’”

Amazon

Mr Murfin explained that Daisy airguns are only intended for use in shooting ranges, garages, basements, or backyards.

But Ladd Everett, the director of communications for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, says that more could be done to regulate these realistic-looking products.

“It doesn’t take a genius to understand that these guns should be manufactured in a way that they can be differentiated by sight,” Mr Everett said. “We live in a society with a lot of guns and we have law enforcement officers that are keenly aware of the danger of guns who are often required to make split second decisions that affect their own safety. ... This is a potential problem”

“The upside is, unlike real guns, you can regulate those products for consumer health and safety.”

When police shot Dedric Colvin, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was hosting a “reconciliation” event in West Baltimore, marking the one-year anniversary of the unrest that broke out following the death of Freddie Gray, who sustained fatal spinal injuries while in police custody.

In the year since the unrest that exposed systemic problems within the Baltimore Police Department, Mr Rose says that this incident will now provide an opportunity for Commissioner Davis – who was appointed in October 2015 – to “show what community policing looks like.”

“There has to be an adequate amount of training to address these problems, to keep these things from happening.”