Twelve Year-old Kid Killed By Cop Car That Rammed Fleeing Motorist

Just another iteration of America’s ‘warrior’ cops on American streets acting as if the streets are war zones and they are action heroes.
— the way they lie is stunning.

The fam­i­ly of an Atlanta-area 12-year-old killed dur­ing a high-speed chase calls for a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor and fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion into a Georgia State Patrol trooper’s actions.
During a Jan. 10 news con­fer­ence, the par­ents of Le’Den Boykins stood on the steps of the Georgia State Capitol build­ing. They expressed sor­row and frus­tra­tion patrol offi­cers didn’t do more to save the lives of the chil­dren inside the car the night of the incident. 
“They decid­ed to ter­mi­nate somebody’s life for a speed­ing tick­et,” Le’Den’s father, Anthony Boykins, said
The inci­dent occurred dur­ing the ear­ly morn­ing hours of Sept. 10, 2021. Charlie Moore, 37, was dri­ving his Kia Sorento with his son and Le’Den Boykins inside.
Boykins, who his grand­moth­er was watch­ing at his Paulding County home while his par­ents were in Michigan at a funer­al, had been per­mit­ted to go out with his 14-year-old neigh­bor and Moore, the teen’s father, to earn some mon­ey clean­ing park­ing lots on the night of the crash, local sta­tion WXIA reported
Georgia State Patrol told NBC Moore “was ini­tial­ly pulled over short­ly after 1 a.m. by a troop­er for speeding.”

Dashcam video shows the traf­fic stop where Georgia State Patrol Officer David Petersen approached the driver’s side win­dow of Moore’s vehi­cle. Petersen claimed Moore tried to evade him. He asked Moore for his driver’s license, which Moore refused to pro­vide, prompt­ing Petersen to ask him to step out of the vehi­cle. Two Paulding County Sheriff’s deputies arrived sev­er­al min­utes into the traf­fic stop, and Moore asked for a super­vi­sor and ques­tioned what crime he had com­mit­ted. At this point, one deputy smashed the driver’s side win­dow, and Moore react­ed by speed­ing away. A high-speed chase last­ed rough­ly eight min­utes until Petersen hit the back left bumper of Moore’s Kia Sorento per­form­ing the PIT maneu­ver. Moore and the chil­dren inside flipped over into a road­side ditch. Petersen is heard say­ing, “PIT suc­cess­ful, PIT suc­cess­ful,” as the car goes into the embank­ment. The PIT maneu­ver is a method used by police to end pur­suits. The method occurs when a police vehi­cle hits the vehi­cle it is pur­su­ing near its back left or right tire. The vehi­cle is struck and then spun around, allow­ing police to stop the chase. The fam­i­ly claims the troop­ers should have act­ed dif­fer­ent­ly because there were chil­dren inside Moore’s vehi­cle. “They could put a road­block up and pro­tect those kids. They couldn’t fig­ure out any oth­er way than to flip that car over?” Anthony Boykins asked.

While Georgia’s Department of Public Safety pol­i­cy does not explic­it­ly pro­hib­it the PIT maneu­ver because chil­dren are in the car, it requires offi­cers to con­sid­er children’s safe­ty. The Paulding County Sheriff’s Office on scene told WANF, “it was 1 a.m., and it was dark, and the troop­ers were hav­ing trou­ble see­ing who was in the vehi­cle.”
“They killed my son, and the first thing they did was lie to me. I asked them specif­i­cal­ly, did you know there were chil­dren in the car, and they gave a very clear answer, no, we did not know chil­dren were in the car,” Anthony Boykins said.
Radio traf­fic shared by Boykins’ attor­ney, Lee Merritt, indi­cates offi­cers on the scene knew chil­dren were in the vehi­cle. 
A dis­patch­er can be heard on police radio traf­fic say­ing, “there are chil­dren in the car.” An uniden­ti­fied offi­cer responds, say­ing, “There are kids in the car. We’ll try again if I can get up there and pass them.” “There’s the vehi­cle com­ing. They bet­ter stop before they get put in a ditch,” an uniden­ti­fied troop­er said. Merritt asked for the Paulding County pros­e­cu­tor to recuse him­self and allow a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor to come in and take over the case last sum­mer. Atlanta NAACP President Gerald Griggs called for Georgia’s attor­ney gen­er­al to appoint a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor again at the news con­fer­ence. He also called for the Department of Justice to inves­ti­gate the case. “It’s been almost 500 days, and there’s still been no action. We’re demand­ing swift and account­able jus­tice in this case. Le’Den was a vic­tim,” Griggs said. “We want jus­tice for our son,” Anthony Boykins said.

Petersen was placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave dur­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion by the GBI, then returned to work ear­ly last year, WXIA reports. The Georgia State Patrol told Atlanta Black Star, “We can­not com­ment due to the notice of poten­tial lit­i­ga­tion.” The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said its only role in the case was to con­duct the autop­sy, and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office said it could not com­ment. Moore was arrest­ed and booked into the Paulding County jail. He faces a slew of charges, includ­ing first-degree vehic­u­lar homi­cide, mur­der dur­ing the com­mis­sion of a felony, reck­less dri­ving, endan­ger­ing a child while DUI of alco­hol or drugs, and flee­ing to elude. He still awaits trial.(AtlantaBlackStar).