Cops in Pa. kill fleeing, unarmed teen

An unarmed 17-yearold boy was shot three times and killed by police in Pennsylvania while running away from officers.

Antwon Rose was shot by a cop in East Pittsburgh on Tuesday night as he tried to get away from a traffic stop during which the driver was arrested.

“They’re not even saying stop,” Rose’s aunt Mica Tinsley told the Post-Gazette after watching a video of the shooting. “They just started shooting, and he fell. He didn’t make it far.”

Rose’s family has hired civil rights lawyer Lee Merritt, WPXI reported.

Police pulled the car over because it matched the description of one that had fled the scene of an earlier shooting in which a 22-year-old man was wounded, the Allegheny County Police Department said in a statement.

The video, posted on Facebook, shows teens running from the car. Three shots ring out, and two passengers appear to either duck or fall to the ground as they pass behind a house. “Why are they shooting?” a voice asks. “All they did was run.”

An officer has been placed on administrative leave as county cops investigate.

Allegheny County Police Superintendent Coleman McDonough said investigators found two semi-automatic handguns on the floor of the vehicle. No shots were fired at the officer.

McDonough indicated state law permits officers to use lethal force on a fleeing suspect in some circumstances, including to prevent death or serious injury to an officer or another person.

One of the passengers got away from the scene. It was not clear whether that passenger was hit in the gunfire, though police have asked to speak to him.

The car’s driver was taken into custody but was released when officers found they did not have cause to charge him in the earlier shooting.

Rose was a student in the Woodland Hills School District and was scheduled to graduate this year.