Philadelphia police admit shooting 12-year-old in back

The officers were in plainclothes in an unmarked car

Plainclothes police officers shot and killed a 12-year-old in Philadelphia on Tuesday as he ran away, according to officials.

The incident began when a group of four officers in an unmarked car working a gun investigation saw Thomas Siderio, Jr, 12, who they said was visibly armed, and another teen, standing on a street corner around 7pm.

When officers turned on their emergency lights, they said they heard gunfire and a “projectile” hit the squad car, shattering the back window and lodging in the passenger seat headrest.

One of the officers, who haven’t been named publicly, got out of the car and began firing at Siderio as he fled, hitting him in the back and chest. The boy was taken to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead shortly after. One officer, injured by flying glass, was hospitalised but is in stable condition.

“Last night, a young child with a gun in their hands purposely fired a weapon at our officers and by miracle, none of the officers suffered life-threatening injuries,” Philadelphia police commissioner Danielle Outlaw said in a Wednesday statement. “However, the life of a young man was cut tragically short, and we should all be questioning how we as a society have failed him and so many other young people like him.”

Police haven’t definitely determined if Siderio was indeed the person who fired at the car, but they recovered a semi-automatic 9mm pistol with a laser sight from the scene of the shooting that had previously been reported stolen.

Philadelphia police defended the rationale behind shooting a fleeing child in the back, with deputy commissioner Benjamin Naish telling reporters during a briefing on Wednesday just because Siderio was running, it  “doesn’t mean that he wasn’t continuing to be a threat to the officers.”

All four officers involved in the shooting have been put on administrative leave while an internal investigation into the incident proceeds.

Little is known about the youth who was killed, but a police bulletin from 2020 reports a missing child named Thomas Siderio.

Residents were shocked at the shooting in their quiet neighbourhood.

”I’ll never get that kid’s face out of my head,” Maureen Flocco told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Last year, Philadelphia police officers shot seven people, killing four of them, according to city data.

The vast majority of the people killed by Philadelphia police are Black or Hispanic, according to data from the Mapping Police Violence project.