11-year-old boy arrested for playing with toy gun
theGRIO REPORT - The Granite City Police Department maintains that the arrest of an 11-year-old boy for playing with a toy gun was justified, despite the vastly different versions of the incident told by witnesses.
A local St. Louis Police Department maintains that the arrest of an 11-year-old boy for playing with a toy gun was justified, despite vastly different versions of the incident told by witnesses.
Chris Fulton said that he was just playing with the toy gun with others and that the gun was not loaded with any pellets. “I was fake shooting with my brother and others,” Fulton said.
Police received a call from a driver who said that the boys were crossing the street slowly and that Fulton pointed his gun at the driver.
“The juvenile in the green shirt pointed what appeared to be a real gun as he walked towards the sidewalk,” said Granite City Police Chief Richard Miller.
When officers arrived on the scene, Miller said, they had no idea that Fulton was only 11 years old, nor did they know the gun was just a toy, and so officers drew their weapons.
“As they pulled on the lot they did not know his age, they did not know it was toy,” Miller said.
Miller also said that officers did not read Fulton his rights because they did not question him.
They pointed a gun at me and took my fingerprints…” the 11 year old told local St. Louis news station KMOV.
Fulton’s mother maintains that the officers’ reaction was mishandled and wants the charges against her son dropped.
This incident comes less than a seven months after a police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice on November, 2014, made global headlines. The child was also playing with an toy gun in a park in Cleveland, Ohio.
