By Dustin Slaughter
Between 2007 and 2013, Philadelphia police officers shot 16 residents – two fatally – who were carrying “BB guns, pellet guns, toy guns, or plastic replicas”, according to a two-page memorandum obtained by The Declaration this afternoon.
One of the fatalities involved a victim with a plastic toy gun; another involved a pellet gun and .38 revolver. One encounter involved an uninjured juvenile with a BB gun. Eight other incidents resulted in injuries, none of which included police officers.
The memo, provided below, was authored by Police Advisory Commission executive director Kelvyn Anderson. It includes the year, address, police district, and result of the interaction with police (i.e. fatal, wounded, or unharmed), among other details.
Anderson sent the memo to City Council’s Public Safety Committee today in response to Southwest Philly residents inquiring about officer-involved shootings.
In an email to The Declaration, Anderson wrote:
“[The Police Advisory Commission] believe[s] the PPD is making progress by making this information available to help answer questions like these from citizens in southwest Philadelphia regarding use of BB guns in police shootings.”
The data was organized by Anderson, who created a searchable file from statistics recently released by the Philadelphia Police Department, on which we reported last week.
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