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LAPD Handed $24 Million Verdict For Shooting Boy Playing Airsoft

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The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) have been ordered to pay US$24 million in a verdict handed down by the jury in case involving a 13-year old boy who was shot by LAPD officers while playing with an airsoft gun. The news is slowly making its way to airsoft forums and Thumpy's 3-D House of Airsoft Scoop.it  page caught the news first and Thumpy immediately sent us a message about this over the weekend.

According to the LA Times, this amount is the largest ever awarded  by the jury among the spate of expensive lawsuits filed against the police department. This case is about the shooting incident last December 2010 where LAPD officers shot Rohayent Gomez who was playing cops and robbers with his two friends with airsoft guns, paralyzing him permanently. LAPD officer, Victor Abarca and his partner were in the area searching for gang and graffiti activity when they chanced upon Gomez and his friends.

The statement filed by Abarca was contradicted by eyewitness statements as the boy didn't do anything threatening as Abarca was said to have ordered to boy not to move and then fired a single shot at him.

The LAPD intends to file an appeal to overturn the verdict, and thus awarding of the damages to the victim will take all the way to the higher courts where they might just side the police or further affirm the verdict of the lower court.

For the full story on the verdict, read it at the Los Angeles Times.

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