Andy Lopez, a 13 year old student who lived in Santa Rosa, was gunned down by a Sonoma County Sheriff 2 weeks ago while walking to a park near his home while carrying a plastic toy rifle modelled after an assault rifle, AK-47.
The deputy sheriff, Mr. Gelhaus, a 24 year veteran, stopped the cruiser, shouted a warning, then fired 8 rounds at the boy, hitting him 7 times, killing him dead at the scene. Sheriff Gelhaus said he was in fear of his life. This former military soldier, acknowledged weapons expert and instructor, came upon this boy in broad daylight, without any weapons being fired, without any reports of a crime being committed, without any fore knowledge of Andy Lopez at all, gunned the boy down after an approximate 10 seconds of verbal warning from a considerable distance.
No One Is Safe in Sonoma County:
not a child, not a parent, not a grandparent, not any citizen who ventures out of their household. Sheriff Freitas must be brought to task for creating the culture and environment that produced this killing. Whatever policy, whatever plan, whatever tactic practiced by the Sheriff's department, it failed miserably.
Where is the outrage? On the streets of Santa Rosa, in front of the Sheriff's headquarters, in front of the city council. Community members have spoken out against the incident. The Lopez family has filed a lawsuit against the county already. The county must pay for this gross taking of a young man's life, a life with everything it could possibly be in the coming years and now gone, taken by a deranged man with a gun, given to him by a culture gone haywire.
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