Praise for police officer who did not shoot two black children divides America

It is police body cam footage that has seen an officer hailed a hero across the US – because he did not shoot two black children.

Video of Peter Casuccio telling the two boys – aged just 11 and 13 – he could have killed them because they were playing with a toy gun was held up as a model of good policing when released on Tuesday.

The implication was that the Columbus, Ohio, officer had shown restraint in not immediately opening fire. In an interview, one CNN host told him: “Good on you.”

Now, America appears to be re-evaluating while asking itself the question: how did an officer not engaging legal force against two children walking home from football practice become considered worthy of praise?

“Pathetic,” noted one Twitter user. “Anti-Black Racism & racial profiling is getting young black kids killed, NOT toy guns.”

The footage – made public by Columbus Police – shows Officer Casuccio stopping the youngsters at gun point after receiving reports they had a firearm.

But, after establishing the item was a toy, he kept the youngsters by the side of the road, telling the terrified boys: “I could have killed you. I want you to think about that tonight when you go to bed. You could be gone.”

In the two-minute lecture following an apology from the boys – who had committed no crime – he said: “You should be sorry and you should be scared.

“Do I look like I want to shoot an 11-year old? Do I look like I want to shoot a 13-year-old?”

When the boys answer “no sir”, he goes on to say they are right - but he would have opened fire if he had felt it necessary. “I pride myself on being a pretty bad hombre,” he says before calling their parents.

In the interview with CNN afterwards, he said: “If you have two kids in front of you — and it almost ended in deadly force — you have an obligation as a steward of your community and to the men and women you work with to grab them by the ear and sit them down and say, ‘Hey, man, this is not the way it works’.”

He added the 11-year-old had reached for the BB gun after he had ordered him not to move and while he was still unsure if the weapon was real or not, creating a “nano-second” in which he had to decide if to fire. “I made the right decision,” he told NBC News in another interview.

One child was collected by his mother whole the officer took the other home. Neither were charged with any crime, police spokesperson Denise Alex-Bouzounis admitted.

The incident came just two years after another officer Columbus police shot dead 13-year-old Tyre King who was also carrying a toy weapon.