A man holds a sign reading "From Boston to Ferguson, cops are racist murderers"
A man holds a sign reading "From Boston to Ferguson, cops are racist murderers" as demonstrators react to the grand jury decision in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, in front of the State House in Boston, Massachusetts November 25, 2014. Missouri police officer Darren Wilson has not been charged for the fatal August shooting of the unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, an incident that set off weeks of sometimes violent protests around the St. Louis area, a county prosecutor said on Monday. The grand jury found there was no probable cause to charge Wilson, who is white, with any crime for the shooting of 18-year-old Brown, an incident that highlighted longstanding racial tensions in the predominantly black city, which has a white-dominated power structure. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

U.S. Police officers shot a 12-year-old child when he tried to reach for an air pistol. Authorities reportedly had the surveillance video which captured the police shooting over the weekend.

The boy, who was shot apparently due to having an air gun which looked ultrarealistic to the officers, was identified as Tamir Rice. According to a spokesman from Cleveland police department, the officers could not recognise if the gun was real or not. Chief Calvin Williams said that the boy's air gun was "indistinguishable from a real firearm" as an orange tip which could indicate that the gun was not real had been removed. "Our officers at times are required to make critical decisions in a split second," CNN quoted Williams, "Unfortunately, this was one of those times."

The African-American origin of the boy, who died from his injuries on Sunday, resulted in a quick comparison between the recent police shooting with what had happened in Ferguson, Missouri. African-American teenager Michael Brown was shot dead by a police officer in August. A grand jury decision on Monday decided not to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who fatally shot Brown. Thousands across the United States went down to the streets in protest of the decision. Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, on the other hand, did not think it the Ferguson incident had anything to do with the recent incident. He said that Ferguson being out there or not being out there did not matter as it was about the fact that a young boy had been shot and killed in Cleveland.

According to Deputy Chief Ed Tomba, the officer shot the boy twice when he tried to reach for his air gun after having been told to raise his hands. The boy, however, did not make any verbal threats to the officer. Neither did he point his gun to the officers, ABC reported. There were two officers who had been involved in the shooting. They are presently on administrative leave in accordance with the standard procedure. According to reports, one of the officers is a 10-year veteran and the other is a first-year rookie.

Timothy Kucharski, the attorney working for the boy's family, refused to play any racial card in the case. Cleveland police did not disclose the race of the officers involved in the case either.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au