Maryland teen carrying airsoft gun fatally shot by state trooper: police
A Maryland state trooper is under investigation after he fatally shot a 16-year-old boy who was pointing an airsoft gun at him in a residential driveway Tuesday, police said.
The officer was responding to a pair of 911 calls about a possibly armed person “acting suspicious” when he found Peyton Ham down the street from the Maryland State Police Leonardtown Barrack, about 60 miles from Washington, D.C., authorities said. The trooper confronted the teen and learned he was “armed with a gun and a knife,” according to police.
A witness who watched the encounter told investigators that Peyton was in a “shooting stance, pointing a gun” at the trooper, said Superintendent Woodrow Jones II, of the state police department. The unidentified trooper shot and wounded the teen, who then pulled out a knife and tried to get up, a second witness reportedly told investigators.
“The trooper ordered him to drop the knife, before he fired again,” Jones said in a prepared statement to reporters.
Troopers, sheriff’s deputies and emergency medical personnel tried resuscitating him, but Peyton was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later, according to police. The trooper was not injured.
Authorities later determined that the teen was carrying a replica gun that was “a close representation of an actual gun,” Jones said at a news conference.
The fatal shooting comes just days after police in Minnesota shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright, prompting new protests against police brutality and racial injustice. A police spokesman told The Associated Press that the Maryland teen was white.
The trooper, who is also white, has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. He has worked for state police for two years and seven months, authorities said.
Prosecutors in St. Mary’s County are leading the criminal investigation while the Maryland State Police Internal Affairs Division will be conducting an administrative review.
“There are many questions we do not have an answer to at this point in the investigation,” Jones said. “However, we are committed to conducting a thorough investigation to determine what has occurred.”
