A Philadelphia police officer has been charged with murder for shooting a 12-year-old boy in the back after he chased it after the teen shot at his vehicle, a district attorney announced Monday (May 20). the city.
To discover
LIVE - War in Ukraine: follow the evolution of the conflict minute by minute
YOUR COMMUNE - The results of the second round of the presidential election in your area
Read also Has police violence really increased?
Officer Edsaul Mendoza, 26, fired from the police force in April, was arrested on Sunday and taken into custody for the death of 12-year-old Thomas Siderio in early March in a neighborhood of Philadelphia, a historic city in the Northeast of the United States between Washington and New York.
He was charged with, among other things,
“premeditated murder
,” Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said in a statement.
During a press conference, the authorities detailed the circumstances of the death of the young boy.
Police officer Mendoza, dressed in civilian clothes, carries out on March 1 with three other colleagues a surveillance mission in their unmarked car parked in a district of Philadelphia, a city which, like many American metropolises, is experiencing an increase in crime.
Seeing Thomas Siderio and another 17-year-old, the police decide to drive around the block.
It was when they turned on their flashing light that the 12-year-old boy opened fire on their car, according to the authorities.
The police then chased the two boys on foot, one of the officers firing a shot without aiming, when Edsaul Mendoza fired three times at Thomas Siderio who fled.
Read alsoPolice accused of illegitimate violence express “disgust”
But according to the prosecutor, who said he had "very difficult to watch"
video footage
, the teenager had already dropped his weapon
"when Officer Mendoza fired the third fatal shot"
.
Near his victim, the policeman
“knows that Thomas Siderio – 12 years old, measuring five feet tall and weighing fifty kilos – no longer has his weapon and can no longer hurt him.
But he nevertheless shoots him in the back and kills him
,” denounced Larry Krasner.
In a statement relayed by The
New York Times
, a police union expressed its
"confidence in the justice system to protect this officer's constitutional rights to a fair trial"
.