Andy Lopez was shot dead by a Santa Rosa police officer as he walked down the street carrying a pellet gun modelled on an assault rifle. Photograph: AP/The Press Democrat
A 13-year-old California boy carrying a replica of an assault rifle to a friend's house was shot dead by a sheriff's deputy who believed the gun was real, authorities have said.
Lieutenant Paul Henry, who is investigating the incident for the Santa Rosa police department, said two Sonoma county sheriff's deputies had been patrolling a street near the boy's home on Tuesday when they saw him walking with what appeared to be an assault weapon in his left hand.
One of the deputies, who did not immediately realize that the person he was seeing from behind was a child, shouted twice: "Put down the gun," according to Henry and a police statement.
"The subject turned toward the deputies, and as he was doing that the barrel of the weapon was rising toward the deputies," Henry said. The deputy then fired rounds, killing the boy.