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A community is searching for answers after police in Utica, New York fatally shot a 13-year-old Asian American boy on Friday night.
According to Al Jazeera, the boy has been identified as Nyah Mway, a refugee from Myanmar. The Utica Police Department claim the shooting happened during a foot chase between Mway and three officers.
Officers were patrolling West Utica that night, searching for a group of suspects, described as Asian males carrying a black firearm, who they believed were involved in a series of robberies, NPR reports. They stopped Mway and another 13-year-old boy on the street around 10 p.m., believing they fit the description.
According to NPR, body camera footage shows officers to pat Mway down, at which point he runs away. The officers chased both boys, and later claimed that the boys displayed what they believed to be a gun.
”Gun!” officers can be heard shouting on the body camera footage before tackling Mway to the ground.
The officers hover over Mway, and the a gun is fired. Witnesses can be heard screaming.
According to NPR, an officer attempted to do chest compressions on Mway, who’s was later transferred to the hospital where he died of his injuries.
The “gun” officers described was later revealed to be a pellet gun.
Utica Mayor Michael Galime has spoken to Mway’s family through the help of an interpreter, the Utica Observer Dispatch reports. Galime held a press conference on Saturday to address community concerns.
“We will be releasing the names of the officers involved in the very near future. We ask for patience as this investigation continues,” Galime said per the Utica Observer Dispatch.
“Our Police Department deals with investigations day in and day out and they don’t end like this,” Galime added later. “They do not end like this. This situation unfolded due to the events very specific to this situation. And that is why we have to only speak to what we can release and when it’s released… And we’re not going to offer information we’re not absolutely sure of.”
Mway’s mother spoke at the press conference, through tears and screams, in her native language. A community member translated one of her remarks, “She said doesn’t want to be in the same room as killers.”
In a GoFundMe page created to support the family, Mway was described as an “outgoing kid who loved to be outside.”
“Our parents and grandparents did not flee war & corrupt military to be persecuted by American police,” Mway’s sibling wrote in the GoFundMe.
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