A 13-year-old boy walks near his home with a toy rifle. Two sheriff's deputies roll up behind him in a squad car, spot the authentic-looking gun and confront him. As the boy turns, one of the officers fires several rounds, killing the boy.
The scenario unfolded in a quiet Sonoma County neighborhood near Santa Rosa, and it set off a storm of grief and anger Wednesday.
The boy's friends and relatives saw a needless killing by jumpy cops, while police investigating the incident sought to show how a gun that shot plastic pellets had been - in the heat of the moment - indistinguishable from a genuine AK-47 assault rifle.
The boy shot Tuesday afternoon was identified as Andy Lopez Cruz, who liked to play basketball and the trumpet. He died on Moorland Avenue, just west of Highway 101, one-third of a mile from his home.
At a news conference, Santa Rosa police officers involved in the investigation held up Andy's pellet gun alongside a real AK-47 assault rifle. Lt. Paul Henry said that after deputies pulled in behind the boy, one shouted for him to put the gun down, then fired several shots.
"One of the deputies described that as the subject was turning toward him the barrel of the assault rifle was rising up and turning in his direction," he said. "The deputy feared for his safety, the safety of his partner and the safety of the community members in the area."
'I don't think it was fair'
Friends and family members of the boy, though, said he would have simply put the gun down if given a chance.
The replica firearm belonged to a friend, they said, and Andy liked to join others in playing games with low-power air guns. They said the deputies should have recognized they were confronting a teenager - and that the gun wasn't real.
"It was tragic, what they did. I don't think it was fair. He was a good kid," said cousin Luis Lopez, 17.
Andy was walking home from school when he was shot, friends said. He had been an eighth-grader at Cook Middle School in Santa Rosa until this week, when he transferred to an alternative program at Lewis Opportunity School.
"He was a great boy, and I treated him like he was my son," family friend Alma Galvan said through tears after visiting Andy's family. "Why couldn't the police just shoot him in the hand or at least in the leg? Why did they have to kill him?"
Aubrey Martin, whose children knew Andy, wondered if the deputies were "trigger-happy." Her son, Gabriel Roque, said, "There's a difference between a cold-hearted killer walking down the street with a gun and a little kid walking down the street with a BB gun. There's something wrong."
Tributes to Andy grew at his former school and at the spot where he was shot. There, a memorial included stuffed animals, candles, flowers and a toy gun wrapped in a red bow.
Socorro Shiels, Santa Rosa schools superintendent, said of Andy: "His administrators and teachers will remember him as kind, intelligent and capable."
In his statement Wednesday, Sheriff Steve Freitas said that as the "father of two boys about this age, I can't begin to imagine the grief this family is going through. This is a tragedy on many levels."
Freitas added, "The public expects that the investigation will be thorough and transparent. As sheriff, I will do all in my power to see that expectation is satisfied. My hope is that we can work with the community to help prevent a similar tragedy from happening in the future."
No orange tip on replica
Santa Rosa and Petaluma police are investigating the shooting, as is the county district attorney's office.
According to the account from Henry, the Santa Rosa lieutenant, the incident began about 3 p.m. when two deputies pulled behind Andy, who wore a blue hoodie and shorts and walked with a rifle in his left hand that had the same brown and black parts as a real AK-47.
Federal law requires replica guns to have an orange tip, but Andy's toy rifle didn't have one.
Witnesses heard a siren briefly, Henry said, as both deputies got out of the car and took cover behind open doors. Henry said witnesses heard a deputy shout twice, "Put the gun down," before Andy turned around and was shot.
Henry would not say how many times the deputy fired or how many times Andy was hit. The deputies handcuffed the boy, he said, and began "life-saving measures," but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The boy also had a plastic handgun in his waistband - this one translucent with an orange tip, Henry said.
The deputies were placed on routine paid leave, pending the investigation. Their names were not released.
An expert on police shootings said the incident underscores the challenges officers face when confronting people with guns that turn out to be fake. Geoffrey Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina, said officers often don't have time to determine whether a gun is real.
"As long as an armed person appears to be a threat, you don't have time to look to see if it's a toy," Alpert said. "If it looks real, you've got to believe it's real. A perceived threat trumps age; it trumps mental abilities."
Some legislators have sought to impose restrictions on replica guns in an effort to make sure police don't mistake them for real ones. California law requires "imitation weapons" to look like playthings by being brightly colored or transparent.
But a state senator's proposal in 2011 to extend that requirement to air guns failed after manufacturers and retailers opposed it. The proposal stemmed from an officer's shooting of a 13-year-old boy in Los Angeles who turned out to be carrying a pellet gun.
Henry K. Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: hlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @henryklee
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