An off-duty safety guard has been charged with second-degree homicide after prosecutors allege he fatally shot a 17-year-old six occasions within the again, the AP is reporting. The teenager and his pals had been trying to return a toy gun, mistaken by the guard as an actual firearm, to a sporting items retailer.
In keeping with King County prosecutors, Aaron Brown Myers, 51, was charged on Monday for the demise of Hazrat Ali Rohani outdoors a Large 5 Sporting Items Retailer in Renton, Washington. Along with the homicide cost, Myers faces a second-degree assault cost for allegedly holding one other teen at gunpoint.
The incident occurred on June 5 at roughly 7:30 p.m. Rohani and two different teenagers had been on their technique to return a malfunctioning airsoft gun to the shop. The group handed in entrance of Myers, who was sitting in his automobile ready to choose up his son from a martial arts class.
Myers knowledgeable police that he believed he noticed one of many teenagers carrying a Glock handgun and one other inserting a firearm into his waistband. Believing he wanted to intervene in an armed theft, Myers mentioned he felt he didn’t have time to name 911, the AP reported. As a substitute, he confronted the kids together with his personal gun—an actual one.
As Myers approached, one of many teenagers stepped apart whereas the opposite two stopped, raised their fingers, and positioned the airsoft gun on the sidewalk. They repeatedly advised Myers that it was a “BB gun” and never an actual firearm, in accordance with witness accounts. Regardless of these assurances, Myers continued to escalate the scenario.
In keeping with the possible trigger doc filed by Renton police and reported on by the AP, Myers then pushed one of many boys onto the sidewalk and straddled him. He continued to level his firearm at Rohani, who held his fingers out in entrance of him to point out they had been empty. As Rohani started to again away, Myers opened fireplace, hitting the teenager as soon as in the proper aspect and 6 occasions within the again.
Video footage reveals Rohani clutching his stomach as he fell to the bottom, calling out for his mom. One of many different teenagers ran for canopy and referred to as 911. Rohani died on the scene, and police instantly took Myers into custody.
Myers’ lawyer, Michelle Scudder, mentioned in an electronic mail that Myers sincerely believed he was witnessing the start of a violent crime and wished to cease it earlier than anybody acquired harm.
“Mr. Myers and his household are devastated by this tragedy and the truth that it resulted within the lack of a younger man’s life,” Scudder mentioned. “We’re assured that over the course of this investigation the proof will present that Mr. Myers’ solely intent that day was to guard himself and others from critical hurt or demise.”
Prosecutors, nevertheless, argue that Myers did not take applicable actions.
“The defendant did not take the apparent step of securing the toy gun, moderately than assaulting the teenager who had carried it,” King County Senior Deputy Prosecuting Legal professional Lauren Burke mentioned in a court docket submitting.
Myers is being held in King County jail on $2 million bail, with a preliminary listening to scheduled for June 24 in Kent, Washington.
“Solely a excessive bail, digital house detention, and give up of all firearms will shield the neighborhood from an untrained civilian who believes he has an obligation to shoot individuals who haven’t harm anybody,” Burke mentioned.
The case serves as a lesson to anybody who could be too fast to intervene in a scenario on which they don’t have all of the info and positively don’t accurately learn as they get entangled in it. It additionally underscores the necessity for kids and even adults both carrying or taking part in with toy weapons to be cautious they don’t seem to be mistook for actual weapons. Numerous current articles have centered on the misuse of Orbeez water gel weapons to shoot folks, which may depart bruises and welts on the pores and skin and even put somebody’s eye out just like a pellet gun. Even these toys, used correctly or misused, may end in somebody with a firearm, together with police, to misidentify a scenario and reply to a perceived assault with lethal pressure.
