White cop who lectured black kids playing with a BB gun in viral video praised on CNN but Twitter has thoughts

Ohio police officer lectures boys about carrying BB guns thegrio.com
(CBS Baltimore)

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An Ohio police officer who stopped himself from shooting a black child when he realized he was holding a toy pistol is being praised this week after video of the conversation he had with the children went viral.

Wednesday, CNN host Brooke Baldwin, invited the officer Peter Casuccio to her show, and began the segment by reminding her audience of cases like that of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who had been fatally shot by police in 2014 while playing with a toy gun.

In stark contrast officer Casuccio, who now explains he went into “dad mode” when he saw the 11 and 13 year old Black boys playing with what looked like a real gun.

Instead of using deadly force on the children, Casuccio cautiously questioned the boys, and then gave them the lecture of a lifetime when he realized there was no real threat and their gun was just a toy.

“If you have two kids in front of you — and it almost ended in deadly force — you have an obligation as a steward of your community and to the men and women you work with to grab them by the ear and sit them down and say, ‘Hey, man, this is not the way it works,’” Casuccio shared.

“I could tell they were both scared, so I thought it was a teachable moment,” said Casuccio, who told the boys to sit on a railing as he spoke to them.

“This is getting kids of all colors of all different types of neighborhoods killed on almost — I hate to say — annual basis,” he continued.

“It is, that’s the truth,” Baldwin responded. “And good on you for doing what you did.”

Casuccio insisted that most of his colleagues in the Columbus Police department would have done the same thing.

“We need more Peter Casuccios in the world,” Baldwin concluded in the segment.

Check out the segment below.

But Twitter had thoughts on whether this officer should be getting praised for not shooting the two children.

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