Black Teen Shot At 16 Times By NYPD Officer

Surveillance footage of the shooting, which happened in 2013, surfaced recently. A Brooklyn teenager, Kenston Charles, who was shot at 16 times by NYPD police, was unarmed and yielding when police opened fire.

The shooting of the 15-year-old teen brought about the comparison with that of Tamir Rice after the video revealed the boy posed no threat to the cops. Charles was holding a BB gun before the foot chase, which resulted in Officer Jonathan Rivera shooting at the teen several times, but only hitting the target thrice.

In contrast to the case of Rice, the little boy who was shot and killed in Cleveland by police while in possession of a pellet gun in 2014, Charles was very lucky to survive.

Charles was shot twice in the buttocks while running and in the chest after raising his hand above his head in an attempt to surrender. “I put up my hands, they was still shooting,” Charles said in a sworn deposition. He also stated that he ran from the police because he feared for his life.

The Black teen was put in a medically-induced coma for three weeks and underwent surgery. In a Family Court, he later pleaded guilty to carrying a fake pistol.

After an internal police investigation, it was found that the officers acted appropriately. Even though Officer Rivera emptied the clip of his pistol, he never faced punishment over the shooting. But, after the availability of the footage, a Manhattan Federal Judge will now decide if Rivera used excessive force or not.

It takes a lot of heart to shoot at a teen 16 times, even though he wasn’t causing any form of threat to the officer. What was the officer trying to do? Create as many bullet holes in the boy’s body as he could? We hope the Judge gets to the bottom of this and the officer is appropriately punished, and this wouldn’t be one of those cases where the officer goes scot free.

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Source: The free thought project