An investigation reveals the officer shot at the ground. Pictures of his 3 young children have been posted online with calls to kill them.
The police investigation of the shooting incident which led to the death of an Ethiopian man, Solomon Tekah, revealed that the police officer shot at the ground, as he had insisted from the beginning. An autopsy of Tekah revealed that only a bent sliver of the bullet was lodged in his body, proving that the bullet first hit a hard surface. Furthermore, the remaining part of the bullet was found lodged in the ground at the scene of the shooting.
A Walla! report related the policeman's version of what happened that fateful day. The off-duty policeman went out with his wife and his children to the park in the evening and saw three young Ethiopian men beating up a 13-year old boy and trying to steal his money and phone.
The policeman approached the scene, ordering them to leave the boy alone but they ignored him. The officer then identified himself as a policeman, but to no avail - the men began cursing at him and threatening him. The policeman then decided to leave the scene since the boy had run away and he noticed that the men seemed to be drunk.
However, shortly later the three men returned and began throwing rocks at the officer, hitting him in the head, chest and shoulders. The officer called for back-up, but meanwhile, feeling like his life was in real danger, pulled out his gun to warn and deter the men. He shot towards the ground and a nearby wall. "I didn't shoot in the air out of fear of harming passersby since it's a populated area," the officer said at the investigation. The evidence regarding the bullet revealed in the investigation cited above, corroborates the officer's testimony.
"In the last 24 hours, pictures of the policeman and his children with calls to murder them were posted on social media and websites," a senior police officer said. "We're not indifferent to this and we have done many things in order to protect the officer and his family. His children, 7 months, 5, and 7 are currently at the highest threat level which exists in Israel."
The police said that the heavy protection of the family will continue for a long time and that they will not be able to return to their home in the near future.
