A 12-year-old boy has died after being shot by police in the US city of Cleveland, after carrying what turned out to be a replica gun in a playground.
Police say an officer fired two shots at Tamir Rice after he failed to obey an order to raise his hands. He did not make any verbal threats nor point the gun towards the officers.A lawyer representing his family said it would be carrying out its own investigation into what happened.
The incident comes as a grand jury decision in Ferguson, Missouri, will decide imminently whether to indict a police officer in the fatal shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager.
The boy was shot on Saturday afternoon and died in hospital early on Sunday morning.
Cleveland deputy police chief Ed Tomba said the boy was shot twice after pulling the gun from the waistband of his trousers. Police said the weapon was an “airsoft” replica gun that resembled a semi-automatic pistol, adding that an orange safety indicator had been removed