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Parents of teen fatally shot by officer question his actions

Jor'Dell Richardson, 14, was fatally shot last week after a robbery at a vape store in Aurora, police said.

AURORA, Colo. — Aurora's interim Police Chief Art Acevedo met Tuesday morning with the family of the 14-year-old boy who was fatally shot by an officer last week.

"They can’t think of nothing else to do to help the situation, only to shoot my son in his abdomen while he’s on the ground after they tackled him down," said Laurie Littleton during the meeting. "He didn’t have the gun out, he wasn’t waving it, none of that."

Her son, Jor'Dell Richardson, was shot on June 1 after an officer with the Aurora Police gang unit saw a group of teens wearing medical masks and hoodies approaching a convenience store near East 8th Avenue and North Dayton Street. The officer thought it was suspicious, and he called for other gang officers to respond and investigate.

Police said that moments later, the teens ran from the store after robbing it of several vape canisters. They learned that at least one of them had threatened the clerk with a firearm.

Officers attempted to stop the suspects and take them into custody, police said. Two were taken into custody without incident, and several more sped away in a stolen Kia Sedona minivan.

Police said a third suspect, identified as Jor'Dell, tried to run but was contacted by officers and was found to be armed with a gun. During a struggle to take him into custody, one officer fired his weapon, Aurora Police said.

"You can see very quickly and hear him [the officer] yell 'get your hand off the gun,' words of that nature," Acevedo said Tuesday. He also said the store clerk identified Jor'Dell as the only one among the group of teens who was armed.

"Whatever the situation was, my son did not have to get murdered," Littlejohn said. "Take different measures when they coming up on a Black young teenager. React like it was their own kid."

The Aurora Police Department has not named the officer involved in the shooting.

"Just know that you are in our thoughts and prayers," Acevedo told the family. "The community has lost a child. The family has lost a son, a grandson, a nephew and a brother and a cousin, and to me they’re the most important people in this room."

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