Idaho police officers opened fire from behind a chain-link fence just seconds after exiting their patrol cars and critically wounded a teenage boy — described by his family as nonverbal, autistic and intellectually disabled — as he stepped toward them with a knife, video from a witness shows.
Seventeen-year-old Victor Perez, who also has cerebral palsy, remained hospitalized in critical condition Tuesday after having nine bullets removed from his body and having his leg amputated, Ana Vazquez, his aunt, told The Associated Press. Doctors were planning tests on his brain activity.
The shooting Saturday in Pocatello outraged the boy’s family and neighbors as well as viewers online who questioned why the officers opened fire within about 12 seconds of exiting their patrol cars while making no apparent effort to de-escalate the situation or use less lethal weapons. Dozens of protesters gathered outside the police department Sunday, eastidahonews.com reported.
~~Yeah, 12 year old should know that calling 911 for help is literally murder! /s
He’s a literal child and was scared. He called for help. It’s gross to blame him or even imply he should know calling for help on the same line you call for fire and ambulances will cause an attempted murder.~~
ETA: I don’t know where I came up with him being 12, but the point about calling for help and the murder hobos being the same line as the helpers still stands. Blaming a 19 year old for calling 911 because the cops decided to try to murder someone is still gross.
I’ve been teaching my kids to not call the police their entire lives. We don’t watch Paw Patrol or Sheriff Labrador. I’ve been telling them that the police are here to protect the businesses, not us, and that police can get away with just killing people.
It absolutely sucks but I don’t want my kids to be either of the ones in this story. Fuck the police, all of them.
Absolutely, fuck the police, but are you also teaching your children to never call an ambulance or the fire department? Are we also saying fuck paramedics and firefighters? Because, again, it’s the same goddamn number for both, and you don’t usually get the other services without the murder hobos tagging along.
Maybe we can focus on the murder hobos and not blaming a child for the actions of the murder hobos.
I’ve been teaching my kids to not call the police. I have been telling them to call 911 when someone is hurt or something is on fire, neither of which were the case in this story.
We can both blame the police and not teach kids to call them. Calling them murder hobos is too charitable IMHO; it makes them sound like goofy adventurers, or not True Police who would never do this.
The caller wasn’t 12.
Where did you get the idea the caller was a 12-year-old? It says in the article he was 19. The victim was 17.
The son is 19, not 12.