Alvin Colvin’s younger brother was shot in the leg by a police officer when he was carrying a toy gun, and so Alvin decided to confront the police officer responsible for the shooting.
In video posted to Facebook, Major Deron Garrity can be heard trying to explain why he shot Dedric Colvin when he thought that the young teen was carrying a semiautomatic pistol.
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“Your little brother had a gun,” Garrity told Alvin in the video, which was shot on a cellphone. “I can tell you right now that the gun looked a 100 per cent real. A 1000% real.”
Garrity then went on to say, “No cop wants to shoot anybody. But if somebody’s got a gun, how am I supposed to tell these officers, ‘Hey make sure that he shoots you first, and then you can do it?”
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Alvin challenged the claims police made that Dedric aimed the gun at them.
“But if he not pointing it at police, why do they got the right to shoot?” he asked, to which Garrity replied, “He did.”
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“I know he’s your little brother and thank God he’s going to be okay,” Garrity told Alvin.
Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said two plain clothes intelligence officers saw Dedric with a basketball in one hand and what they thought was a firearm in the other. When the officers identified themselves, Dedric turned and ran. The officers pursued and then, according to their report, saw that the teen was still holding the replica gun, and Dedric ignored commands to drop the weapon, and that is why officers fired.
However, witnesses have contradicted that account, saying that Dedric identified the gun as fake.