A Teen With A Toy Was Killed By Police, And Few Want To Talk About It

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
Vaxton P. Hartnabrig.
@GeeDee215
A cop fires 10 shots at a 16 y.o.

Waits three seconds. Fires another shot.

Walks 12 feet closer to the teenager, who is presumably incapacitated/bleeding out at this point.

Another minute passes, and the cop shoots him four more times.

A Teen With A Toy Was Killed By Police, And Few Want To Talk About It | Defector
Peyton Ham died on the street where he lived. On April 13, 2021, Ham was killed in Leonardtown, Md., when a police officer fired lots of bullets at and into him. He was 16 years old. It’s a story so...
defector.com
6:20 AM · Sep 30, 2021

https://defector.com/a-teen-with-a-toy-was-killed-by-police-and-few-want-to-talk-about-it/

Peyton Ham died on the street where he lived. On April 13, 2021, Ham was killed in Leonardtown, Md., when a police officer fired lots of bullets at and into him. He was 16 years old. It’s a story so sad that you can understand why some folks would want it to just go away. Especially police and public officials in and around the rural Southern Maryland town, located about an hour and a half from Washington, D.C.

At a press conference held hours after the shooting, the Maryland State Police said that one of their officers had responded to a pair of 911 calls about a male acting “suspicious” on Hollywood Road just down the street from the state police barracks. The officer started shooting at Ham because the kid pointed what looked like a real weapon at him, the cops said, and kept shooting after the teen fell because, according to the officer’s account, the mortally wounded youngster was attempting to pull out a knife. Woodrow Jones, State Police superintendent, told reporters that his agency did not know how many shots were fired or how many shots hit Ham.

Almost immediately after the shooting, state police released a photograph of what the cops said was the knife found on Ham, which had a three-inch blade. The cops also said Ham was otherwise unarmed, and that the officer had mistaken a faux firearm as the real thing. The police only released a stock photo of an airsoft pellet gun they said he pointed at the officer in a menacing manner. (That’s the same non-lethal replica that 12-year-old Tamir Rice was playing with when he was murdered by Cleveland police in 2014.) It took almost two weeks, and pressure from Ham’s family and other Leonardtown residents, before the state police released the name of the officer, Joseph Azzari. The cops, however, have still never said how many times Azzari, described by superiors as a two-year veteran, fired his weapon or how many bullets hit Ham.

Police and public officials have released almost no information about the shooting since the day Ham died, and have done seemingly nothing to resolve the questions hanging over the case. They have never said who made the 911 calls that triggered the deadly encounter or released the recordings. No video footage of Ham’s shooting has ever come out; Maryland State Police are not currently required to wear cameras. A week before Ham was killed, state legislators in Annapolis passed a bill, the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021, which an omnibus bill that among other things mandates that all state police officers be equipped with body cams by 2023.

*snip*

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. The toy was an airsoft gun.

There was a long thread at DU about the incident back in April.

Wed Apr 14, 2021: Maryland trooper fatally shoots teen armed with airsoft gun

Source: UPI

April 14 (UPI) -- Police in Maryland said they are investigating a trooper-involved shooting that resulted in the death of a 16-year-old boy armed with an airsoft gun and knife.

Maryland State Police on Tuesday identified the slain teen as Peyton Ham of Leonardtown, Md., located about 56 miles south of Washington, D.C.

Authorities said police received two separate 911 calls within minutes of each other at around 1:30 p.m. concerning a man acting suspicious and possibly armed, Maryland State Police said in a statement.

According to a preliminary investigation, the state trooper shot Ham in a Hollywood Road driveway.

Read more: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2021/04/14/Maryland-trooper-fatally-shoots-Petyon-Ham/7711618376630/

[Devil Child]

2. This was the toy and weapon the deceased was carrying.

Very realistic looking toy.



Very real knife.

[RussBLib]

4. what do we expect?

damn near every commercial these days includes people pointing guns at other people, people shooting other people, people hitting other people with clubs or guns, explosions, fistfights.

This is one extremely violent culture. Kids watch too

[Aristus]

3. What kind of coward-ass pig-cop shoots a guy when he's down?

[jmowreader]

6. The kind of coward-ass pig cop who thinks the guy has a real gun...

…and knows the guy who’s down and still has what he thinks is a real gun could still blow his shit away. Jeeze man, didn’t you see Inglourious Basterds?

[atreides1]

8. That's the issue...

Cops don't think, they react...but he's still a coward with a badge and a gun!!!

[Jilly_in_VA]

10. You just answered your own question

I'm beginning to think they are all this way.

[jmowreader]

5. I'm going to be the devil's advocate here

The Biden Administration needs, right now, to require Manufacturers of toy guns make them look like something other than real guns. I saw the picture of the gun this kid had and…guess what? I can’t tell the difference between that gun and a real Sig. Add to that the fact cops have been shot by juveniles, and you can see the problem. Remember what Sean Connery told Kevin Costner in The Untouchables: “You’ve just fulfilled the first rule of police work: make sure when your shift is over you go home alive.” War games would be just as much fun if the guns they had looked like Marvin the Martian’s blaster, and the cops could tell at a distance they aren’t real guns.

[MagickMuffin]

7. Since there were no one video recording then we HAVE to believe the enforcers

There is no other way around this. Nope, the enforcers words are the only truth because .... well he killed the only witness around, apparently.


And where were the people calling 9-11?

Was there really calls placed?

It seems very suspicious that the enforcers are sweeping everything under the rug, where it will likely remain.

[ck4829]

9. Depressing and disgusting

[lindysalsagal]

11. I just returned from a driving trip into the south and back.

Gotta say I was relieved to get back north-ish. Not that it's any guarantee, but that more is being done to curb the shootings.

[robbob]

12. Two-year veteran?

That’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one.

[2naSalit]

13. Same thing...

Tamir Rice was carrying? Looks like a regularly employed "throw down" element that gets them off the hook if they are convincing enough and nobody has evidence to other possibilities.

A cop's word used to be golden, not so much anymore. Another group who forgot that they are public servants. Now all they seem to do is serve themselves and their inhumane fetishes.