May 11, 2009 2:59 pm US/Pacific
Deputy Shoots Teen Carrying Toy Gun In Palmdale
PALMDALE, Calif. (AP) ―
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A deputy-involved shooting injured a teenager in Palmdale Sunday.
CBS
Authorities said a 15-year-old boy in Palmdale brandishing a replica handgun was shot and wounded by a sheriff's deputy who mistook it for the real thing.
Officials said the boy has been hospitalized in stable condition.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said deputies responding to reports of someone riding a bicycle and brandishing a handgun went to 20th Street shortly before 8 p.m. Sunday.
Whitmore said deputies ordered the boy to drop the weapon but instead he pointed it at deputies. One deputy shot the boy in the upper torso.
Whitmore said the boy may have been playing "cops and robbers" with friends earlier in the evening but that was not the case when deputies arrived.
He said the replica gun resembled a black semiautomatic pistol.
But the boy's grandmother, Kim Harding, said he obeyed the deputies' commands before he was shot. She said her grandson is a special-education student.
(© 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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