Riverside Deputy Kills Youth Armed With Pipe

A teenage boy was shot and killed in the garage of his Moreno Valley home Friday afternoon by a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy responding to a reported family dispute at the residence, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

The deputy shot the youth several times after the teen allegedly raised a metal pipe-like object, lunged at him and did not respond to repeated orders to drop the object, said Riverside Deputy Craig Roberts. The boy was 16 or 17, according to Roberts, who did not release the youth’s name.

Roberts said deputies, who patrol the city of Moreno Valley, were called to the home in the 14,000 block of Kennebec Court at 4:10 p.m. by “someone in the home” who reported a family disturbance. “When the officer arrived he contacted a Hispanic male juvenile who observed the officer [and] ran into the garage. The officer followed and tried to contact the subject,” Roberts said.

“Apparently there’s a bed in the garage,” Roberts said. The teen “jumped on that, grabbed something, a metal object. The officer gave him commands to drop that, verbal commands, the kid refused, lunged at the officer...The officer, fearing for his safety, shot the subject several times.”

After the shooting, the deputy administered first aid and other medical personnel responded, he said, but the youth was declared dead at the scene.

“Somebody in that house called police,” Roberts said.

Roberts said while the bed was in the garage, it did not appear to be a permanent living arrangement. He did not know exactly what the metal object was that the teen allegedly raised, but said “it was not a gun, but something if it had hit the officer pretty good ... would have knocked the officer out.”