A community of Southeast Asians who live in upstate New York is looking for answers and justice after police fatally shot a 13-year-old refugee who pointed a replica gun at officers.
Members of the Karen ethnic minority in Utica, New York, which is about 55 miles east of Syracuse, have rallied together in outrage and sadness since the teenager’s death Friday night.
Karens are among the groups warring with the military rulers of Myanmar, the Southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma.
Before he was shot Friday, Nyah Mway was tackled to the ground after he ran from police, who have said he was one of two youths stopped in connection with an armed robbery investigation.
Police said Nyah Mway matched a description of a robbery suspect. He ran away from officers while he was being frisked and then pointed a replica gun at them, officials have said. “There is no justification,” LuPway Doh, a Karen leader in Utica, said Monday. “We have a lot of questions that need to be answered, especially,why the kids needed to be stopped and all the way to why the trigger needed to be pulled.”
Doh said the community demands to know whether the teens were racially profiled when they were stopped and whether police used excessive force.
Body camera video police released Saturday shows an officer saying he needs to pat down the juveniles to ensure they don’t have any weapons. Immediately one of the two, identified by police as Nyah, runs away.
Authorities froze frames of the video in which Nyah is running and appears to point the replica gun at the pursuing officers. Police edited the video to insert a red circle around the replica weapon to show it to viewers.
It was a replica of a Glock 17 Gen 5 handgun with a detachable magazine, police said.
A bystander video posted to Facebook shows an officer chasing after Nyah and tackling him to the ground. It also shows the officer punching him as two other officers arrive. A gunshot is fired as Nyah is on the ground.
The teens matched…
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