Deputy shoots, kills 14-year-old on reservation

Questions swirled Thursday around the officer-involved killing of a 14-year-old boy on a northern Wisconsin Indian reservation whom authorities had still not identified the day after his death.

Family members identified the boy as Jason Pero, an eighth-grader at Ashland Middle School, who was shot by an Ashland County sheriff ’s deputy shortly before noon Wednesday on the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa reservation.

The deputy was responding to a report of a male subject walking down Maple St. armed with a knife, according to a news release from the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

The Ashland County Sheriff’s Office, which provides law enforcement services on the reservation along with the tribal police department, said only that “shots were fired” by the deputy and that the “suspect” was “struck by gunfire” and died at a hospital.

A knife was recovered at the scene of the shooting, according to the DOJ, which is investigating the death.

Jason’s mother, Holly Gauthier, described her son as loving, kind and a “big teddy bear” and said authorities have provided few details about his death.

The superintendent of the School District of Ashland, Keith Hilts, said Jason was involved in the school band and was a member of the drumming group, which will honor him at a Veterans Day assembly Friday.