A 13-year-old boy apparently brandishing a gun was shot dead by police in New York — and the violence was caught on video.
The footage began with three police officers running down the street after the teenager in the upstate city of Utica on Friday night.
Officers caught up with the boy and threw him to the ground in a residential area. A police officer can be seen standing over the boy outside a home and punching him as he lies on the front lawn. There was a brief scuffle before one of the officers fired a shot at the young man.
As the chaos unfolded, neighbors were outside their homes filming the incident on their cell phone cameras. You can hear them reacting in horror after the shot rang out. One person screamed, “Oh my God! Hey! He just shot him!”
The teenager was rushed to a hospital, where he died from his injury.
In a statement posted to Facebook, Utica Police Department officials said officers stopped two juveniles as part of an investigation. But the 13-year-old fled on foot and officers chased him as he appeared to pull out a gun, police said.
This led to the confrontation in which the officer fired his gun, killing the boy.
Authorities have now launched an investigation into the police-involved shooting.