LOS ANGELES - A 15-YEAR-OLD boy playing cops and robbers was shot by police in California after pointing a toy gun at an officer responding to a reported burglary, police said on Monday.
The boy was recovering in a hospital on Monday after the shooting in the town of Palmdale, approximately 98 kilometers north of Los Angeles, the local sheriff's department said.
The boy allegedly pointed the toy gun at the deputy and ignored an order to drop it before being shot.
Local media reports said the victim had been riding a bicycle when he was confronted by the officer just before Sunday evening.
'The kids, they were playing cops and robbers ... I come running outside and the kid's lying on the sidewalk and it looks like he has a gunshot wound to his back and his midsection on the front,' a witness said on local media.
The boy was airlifted to a local hospital with a gunshot wound to his torso and was expected to survive, officials said.
