A Baltimore police officer on Wednesday shot a 13-year-old boy who was carrying around a fake gun, authorities said.
The unidentified teenager was shot and wounded after two police officers spotted him with a handgun and chased him on foot shortly after 4 p.m., the Baltimore Police Department said in a statement. Authorities later learned the firearm was a replica.
“It is a dead-on ringer, semi-automatic pistol that resembles a Beretta handgun,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis told reporters, according to the New York Daily News. “Those police officers had no way of knowing that it was not, in fact, an actual firearm. It looks like a firearm.”
The boy sustained non-life threatening injuries and was being treated at a nearby hospital. There were no other injuries. The shooting is being investigated by the police department’s Special Investigation Response Team.
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