Northern California deputy Erick Gelhaus is in the center of attention this week for dodging a possible murder charge. According to LA Times, Deputy Gelhaus shot and killed 13 year old Andy Lopez after mistaking the 13 year old’s plastic AK-47 replica with a real AK-47 assault rifle. This incident occurred in October of 2013 when the deputy was patrolling a local neighborhood and saw Andy Lopez toting the mistaken AK-47 rifle. Once deputy Erick Gelhaus saw the gun, he reportedly “feared for his life” and shot the 13 year old a total of seven times. This story will definitely create an ongoing debate in the next couple of weeks. What do you think about this non-indictment of Erick Gelhaus? Was the Sonoma County’s district attorney’s office right for not charging deputy Gelhaus?
[AP Report Excerpt]
–“Prosecutors said Monday they will not file criminal charges against a Northern California sheriff’s deputy who shot and killed a 13-year-old boy carrying a pellet gun he mistook for an assault rifle.
The parents of Andy Lopez decried the decision, saying “it is impossible” to accept and they felt as though their son “had been killed again.”
The teen’s death last year heightened racial tensions in a mostly Latino neighborhood of Santa Rosa, a city of about 170,000 residents around 50 miles north of San Francisco. The shooting parked protests and criticism that the officer acted too quickly.
Deputy Erick Gelhaus fired multiple rounds in response to what he believed was an imminent threat of death, Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch announced at a news conference.
“While in the lawful performance of his duty, Deputy Gelhaus was faced with a highly unpredictable and rapidly evolving situation,” Ravitch said. “He believed honestly and reasonably that he was faced with a do-or-die dilemma.”
Ravitch displayed photographs of the pellet gun found next to Lopez and a real assault rifle to highlight similarities in appearance.
Gelhaus shot Lopez on Oct. 22 as the teen walked near his home with the pellet gun. The deputy told investigators he believed the gun was real and opened fire out of fear for his life.
At least one witness said he heard the deputy order Lopez to drop the pellet gun before shooting, Ravitch said.
Gelhaus fired eight times, striking the eighth-grader seven times with his department-issued 9 mm handgun. The district attorney said Gelhaus had 18 rounds in his gun and stopped shooting when he felt the threat had ended. Lopez was declared dead at the scene.
“This disheartening decision leaves the family feeling as though Andy had been killed again today,” Lopez parents said in a prepared statement released by their lawyer, Arnoldo Casillas.”–
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