Policemen shoot boy in Cleveland

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Police in the US city of Cleveland shot and killed a 12-year-old African-American boy waving around what turned out to be a toy gun at a playground, officials and reports said Sunday.

The shooting in Ohio comes amid high racial tensions in the United States, with a grand jury set to announce whether a white policeman will be indicted for the fatal shooting in August of an unarmed black teenager in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson in Missouri.

Ohio was also the scene of another fatal shooting in August, when police responding to a 911 call shot and killed a black man, John Crawford, in a Walmart store while he was carrying a toy gun sold there.

In this latest incident, officers called to the scene Saturday fired at the boy twice, hitting him at least once in the stomach, after reports that he was pointing a gun at people.

The boy, identified by the county medical examiner’s office as Tamir Rice, died early Sunday, local newspaper The

Plain Dealer reported. One of the police officers was in his first year in the force, it said.

Both officers have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, as is standard in such cases, Cleveland police said in a statement.

Reports said surveillance footage from the playground was being used in the investigation.