Ohio man shot dead by police in Wal-Mart while holding toy rifle.

Courtesy of WSOCTV:  

An Ohio man is dead after police are called into a Walmart for reports of a man walking through the store with a rifle. It turns out, a law enforcement source for WHIO said, that it wasn't a real gun but a toy, either a BB or pellet gun, that he had opened at the store Tuesday night. 

WHIO reported a couple were in the hardware department when they saw John Crawford walking past them with a rifle pointed toward the sky. They followed Crawford through the store as they called 911 and warned other shoppers to stay away. 

One witness, Ronald Ritchie said Crawford "was just waving it at children and people. Items.... I couldn't hear anything that he was saying. I'm thinking that he is either going to rob the place or he's there to shoot somebody else." The man looked kind of serious, Ronald Ritchie said. "He didn't really want to be looked at and when people did look at him, he was pointing the gun at them. He was pointing at people, children walking by." 

Ritchie said he wasn't pointing it as if he was going to shoot, but waving it in their direction. 

The couple didn't know police had arrived until they saw four or five officers appear in the pet section, where Crawford was standing. 

"I heard, 'put it down, put it down,' " April Ritchie said. "I heard two shots after I saw him turn. He still had the weapon in his hand." 

The Ritchies said the man fell backward when he was hit by the gunfire, but got back up and went toward the officer who shot him. That officer then tackled the man. Officers then handcuffed him and turned him on his back, Ronald Ritchie said. 

So here's the thing.

John Crawford

John Crawford, who happens to be black, gets gunned down while carrying a toy gun through Wal-Mart, but white Ammosexual assholes can walk around carrying totally real, loaded AR-15's and nobody unloads a clip into them?

Here is more from Raw Story:

The mother of Crawford’s children said she was speaking to him by cell phone when he was confronted by police in the store. 

“He said he was at the video games playing videos, and he went over there by the toy section where the toy guns were,” said LeeCee Johnson. “The next thing I know, he said, ‘It’s not real,’ and the police start shooting, and they said ‘Get on the ground,’ but he was already on the ground because they had shot him.” 

“I could hear him just crying and screaming,” Johnson said. “I feel like they shot him down like he was not even human.” 

Ohio’s attorney general, who was asked by Beavercreek police to investigate the case, confirmed Crawford was holding a MK-177 (.177 caliber) BB/Pellet Rifle when he was shot to death.

So it appears that Crawford was killed for carrying an item through the store that he found while shopping IN the store.  There is something truly fucked up about that.

Now eyewitness reports suggest that Crawford appeared to be attempting to load the weapon, and did not comply with the police when they asked him to drop it, however I still cannot get over the feeling that if his skin had been lighter he would have walked away from this incident unscathed.