Police released the bodycam from the police shooting back in late February 2025 just a few short blocks from my house. Cole Turner, 15, wondered around with a Sig P365 BB or airsoft gun, acting like a tough guy one Tuesday afternoon. People called the police and they showed up.
For ten minutes or more, police showed saint-like restraint trying to talk Cole Turner down from his tough-guy irrational mental state. He tried telling them to leave. Like that was going to happen. Then he threatened to kill them. That didn’t seem to intimidate them either. At a couple of points he said, “You’re gonna kill a 15-year-old kid.”
Well, sweetie, if you demonstrate that you’re a credible threat to innocent life, yeah. Police are going to shoot to stop the threat. And if you die? Tough cookies, punk.
When he raised the gun, five officers discharged their guns.
Cole Turner wanted to die and not go to jail again. He got his wish on both counts.
Before the final details came out, I wondered if little Cole Turner wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, gaining national attention as the nation’s next mass spree killer by shooting up the nearby playground where me and my boys were at as this went down. Turner reportedly told his peers on a public transit bus, while showing them his pistol, that he didn’t expect to live the rest of the day. He was going to “take care of some business.” We had walked home to welcome mom home when we heard the gunfire.
Turns out Cole didn’t have a real gun. Not this time at least. But he talked like he did. The threatened to kill the cops with his very realistic-looking airsoft/BB gun. And they took him at his word.
His mom, no stranger to law enforcement in the community, says her son wanted to go to law school and become a prosecutor. Yeah. He was expelled from public schools. At the “alternative” school he reportedly was on the verge of failing out of that. And I’m told he also had a starring role in a police stand-off in Normal last fall. It’s hard to get into law school with bad grades. And becoming an attorney as a felon? Good luck.
And to become a prosecutor? LOL.
Mom was just trying to get a bigger wrongful death settlement. However, with the bodycam’s release, that’s gonna be very difficult. She’ll be lucky if they don’t send her a bill for the ammunition used and overtime paid while investigating, and cleaning up the mess her son made.
Frankly, I thank the good Lord that Bloomington Police interacted with this young hoodlum where they did, when they did. If they had not, it might have fallen on others to stop what they perceived as a lethal threat to innocent life. And the aftermath of using deadly force in self-defense is not one bit nice.
Here’s more from WGLT:
‘We don’t want to hurt you’: Video shows 10-minute standoff before police shot 15-year-old in Bloomington
Newly released video shows Bloomington Police officers spent 10 minutes pleading with a 15-year-old to drop a gun before fatally shooting him when the confrontation escalated. The McLean County state’s attorney says the officers were legally justified in using deadly force.
Illinois State Police on Tuesday released video footage showing two angles of the Feb. 25 shooting that killed Cole Turner of Normal. An additional angle filmed by someone inside a nearby apartment shows Turner talking to the officers while holding what appears to be a gun. Officers recovered a Sig Sauer P365 Air Pistol from the scene, State Police said. That is a realistic-looking BB gun. Authorities say Turner bought it just two days before he died.
The video footage was released as State’s Attorney Erika Reynolds issued a 13-page preliminary report based on a concluded State Police investigation.
“It is our unequivocal opinion that the Bloomington Police Department officers were legally justified in their use of deadly force against (Turner),” Reynolds and two assistant prosecutors wrote. “The officers held the reasonable belief that the subject was armed with a firearm and was willing to use that firearm against the officers. The fact that the weapon was later determined to be an air pistol [BB gun] does not change the reasonableness of their belief.”
10-minute de-escalation
Police say the incident began when Turner and two other young people had a run-in with someone walking their dog near Arcadia Drive on the city’s southeast side. Turner allegedly showed the person he had a gun in his waistband. Police say Turner fled on foot when officers arrived around 4:45 p.m.
The video footage begins when police caught up to and confront Turner behind an apartment building off Arcadia Drive. Turner then talked to officers from a distance for around 10 minutes. Turner stood near two parked, unoccupied cars in an apartment parking lot.
In the video, Turner said he’s on “probation” and that he’s “not going back to jail.”
“We don’t want to hurt you. Why are you doing this?” one officer asked.
“What is upsetting you?” another asked.
“We’ll work through the trouble stuff,” an officer said. “You’re gonna end up getting shot, and that’s a lot worse than jail, I promise you.”
Officers continued to talk to Turner about what’s happening in his personal life. About 10 minutes into the confrontation, Turner began to get more agitated.
“You’re gonna get shot if you don’t drop that gun,” an officer said.
“Oh, for real?” the 15-year-old appears to say.
“Yes,” the officer replied.
Then there was a burst of gunfire. It’s unclear from the video what exactly prompted the gunfire to begin. Turner’s image and movements are largely blurred in the video released by police.
Prosecutors say Turner “chose to raise his weapon and point it at the officers.” Bloomington Police Chief Jamal Simington said Tuesday that Turner raised the gun at officers. Five officers then opened fire, striking Turner three times, authorities said.
After Turner was shot, officers approached him and began rendering first aid.
Turner died at the scene. No officers were injured. As is common practice with police use of deadly force, State Police were called in to conduct an independent investigation of what happened.
Five officers opened fire, but he was struck only three times??
If you read FBI reports regarding use of force, (officer or agent shootings) the number of on target hits is 30-80% depending upon the situation. The amount of adrenaline does really strange things to fine motor skills. This is why stress training is getting popular.
What follows is a synopsis of an fbi report
“specific, comprehensive report on officer-involved shooting accuracy percentages, a 2018 study analyzing 149 shootings found officers struck the suspect with at least one round 54% of the time, with about one-third of all rounds fired hitting the target.
10-32,
After perusing that report, I’d prefer a much larger sampling than one metro police department. It could be interesting to see if there is a marked difference between urban, suburban and rural OISs. However, on this topic, Dick Fairburn has a recent podcast speaking to how firearms training restructuring, of the last 10-15 years, has had documented improvement in percentages of shots hitting their intended targets. He also addresses officers’ conviction when it comes to using deadly force.
The cops wouldn’t be held responsible for killing innocent people or damaging property. That’s what qualified immunity is for. SO they have no incentive to be responsible with a gun. And you republicans are fine with that.
THe hit ratio for a well trained police department is normally about 25%.
It’s sad that you’ve become so jaded that you actually celebrate the death of a troubled 15-year-old kid. He’s obviously the product of a ruined society that celebrates bastardry and single motherhood, and emotional problems …and he did not have a real gun so he was no threat to you or your kids at all. What was the threat to you and your kids was five pigs who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn if they were within 10 ft of it. And of course the young man who desired to commit suicide by cop. Pray for his soul and pray for John Boch’s Soul because he’s losing his.
You need to look deep inside yourself and resolve why you’re celebrating the murder of a 15-year-old kid.
No one is celebrating death, but rather that potential harm to others has been avoided.
Sometimes that requires the killing of another. What difference does his age make? A predator is a predator. So be it.
You also need to look up the definition of murder. You obviously don’t know that that is.
Ken it’s a core value of the Republican Party to worship police and celebrate when they execute citizens – what they refer to as “subjects” like it’s some fucking video game. “Back the Blue” is a sign of mental illness. Sociopath is one strand of the illness, just one but it’s enough to declare the designation and put in question their eligibility to have a FOID card. Look up the definition of a sociopath vs. what this party actually supports. If one of those cops would have struck a bystander and hurt or negligent murdered them, they would get away with it because of qualified immunity. There is no accountability in that profession and the public has to pick up the tab, cover the costs of police violence and clean up the mess while the perpetrator gets rewarded. When the Republicans say they want small government they mean less rules for corporations, sure less taxes on things they care about and they want less civil rights laws and less non-discrimination laws so they can establish a pecking order in society to erase and harm entire groups of people they don’t like. Again, sociopath. When it comes to police however, government can never be big enough for them. Before someone calls me a democrat for pointing out the truth just realize your talking points are of no value. I am an Independent and can tell you this and don’t like the Dems for their own reasons. Unlike the GOP, I actually believe in all of the Constitution. They cherry-pick out the 4th and 14th Amendments for starts. And this party is for gun rights? How’s that work when you give more support to the police who enforce gun control than you do gun owners? If you are brave enough to call yourself a republican in public then walk just outside naked while you’re at it. YOU HAVE NO SHAME!
…blah, blah, blah…same-‘ol, same-‘ol kenny-boy pile of manure. Yer smellin up the site again, kenny-boy.
It wasn’t a real gun okay but the officers didn’t know that
That’s exactly the point. The gun wasn’t real. The child was no threat at all. He couldn’t have harmed anyone by any means whatsoever. The cops killed him. John Boch is celebrating this.
I’m saying there’s something horribly wrong with a society that celebrates the murder of a child under the auspices of “yay another Mass Gun Violence attack averted!”
Did you miss the point that THE OFFICERS DIDN’T KNOW THAT?
Do you even read any of it? Did you look up the definition of murder yet?
I’d like to see you put your life on the line against someone waving a gun around, and you have to figure out very quickly, and under great stress, whether the gun is real or not. And if you can’t tell, what are you going to assume?
“the officers didn’t know that”
Would a concealed carry holder get that same free pass?
Travis is correct down in the comments saying “Back the Blue” is a sociopath form of mental illness. Just go search out the definition of that yourselves. One element of that disease is to have little or no remorse for harming others. I too am an Independent and Travis was correct to point out that Republicans don’t like non-discrimination laws because they want to suppress entire groups of people they don’t like. So take for example those who say, “I support traditional marriage” or “marriage is only a man and a woman.” Those euphemisms aren’t fooling ANYONE. The people who say this have an entitled sense of superiority and a sociopathic disorder where they get entertainment out of watching gay people get denied the rights that they themselves enjoy and to top that off, same-sex marriage has NOTHING to do with anyone else. It’s a legal document between the two people in the union and equal rights under the government. THAT’S IT! It is no one else’s business and only a self-righteous control freak wants to interfere with other people’s lives. Do NOT use the “religious freedom” card when the very people who use the “religious freedom” (victim) card don’t even follow their cherry-picked bible themselves. Go up to an anti-gay practicing Catholic and tell them under the same criteria (abomination) that church excuses itself to go after gay people’s civil rights can be used right back on them for pushing shrimp consumption during Lent. Tell them that under their own rules they would support banning their own marriage. Watch them call you a hateful bigot and otherwise go APE SHIT the second you read their own bible back to them WORD FOR WORD and make them live by their own rules. So don’t give me this “religious freedom” BULLSHIT! You gaslighting insidious control freaks don’t even follow YOUR own bible.
The bottom line is this and I hope the Illinois General Assembly is watching. It’s already established; mentally ill people aren’t supposed to have guns. Sociopath = mental illness. Vocalize your support for discrimination and you LOSE YOUR FOID! Say marriage is only man/woman LOSE YOUR FOID! You bigots out there must be put on notice that homophobia won’t be tolerated in the State of Illinois!
P.S. We don’t give a FUCK if you are tired about LGBTQIAA+. In fact, the more you complain the more you get it. In other words, complaining about Pride is counterproductive for you. Again, we don’t give a FUCK and the world does NOT revolve around you. If rainbow flags bother you that much then go up to a liberal and see if they have a mask you can use. That’s what snowflakes wear when the world scares them!
You lost me at “traditional marriage.” As soon as I read your little screed there I knew you are a liberal puke and that nothing you say thereafter will make any sense, so I shouldn’t bother reading it.
Personally and on behalf of every other conservative who supports traditional marriage and the non-gay movement (or rather resents and resists the pro-homo Nazi movement trying to Ram it down our throats- or our kids’ throats – literally) the fact – that is, medical fact – that a man is a man and a woman is a woman, my basis is my Christian faith. My reasons for believing these things is because it has always been this way because we have always believed in God.
God tells us that marriage is between a man and a woman and you say that because I believe that and therefore believe in God that I want to suppress someone. See, that’s just lunatic ranting and nonsense!
Happy Good Friday. In three days HE arose!
bye Felicia….. one less P.O.S. taxpayers for whom would be on the hook.
Ken, you have no clue. Have you been on the job, have you ever been involved in a deadly force confrontation? I doubt you have, otherwise you would not be speaking ignorantly.
You’ve obviously forgotten Jeff but yes I’ve been involved in a deadly force self-defense incident and that’s why I keep advising anyone in Illinois in particular who is going to carry a concealed weapon to get some kind of self-defense insurance. I’m not marketing for anyone in particular just pick from one of the many according to your own needs and beliefs. If you do not it very well could ruin your life. I also have been armed and at the ready since I was approximately 11 years of age when my family was threatened by a viable threat and we children we’re instructed that if we saw the man to shoot him. I had my 30 caliber M1 carbine loaded with one in the chamber and was ready and he was caught.
I still am not celebrating that man’s ultimate death because he was insane and what is unfortunate is that today we don’t have facilities set up for the treatment of the insane that instead cops just kill them too.
I am saddened by the fact that some of these people never had a chance to know Jesus, that they lived their entire short lives without anyone ever telling them that they didn’t have to die.
Ken when a person with a gun in those circumstances tells me they are going to kill me I have to believe them to win. This is a situation called suicide by cop. The situation is common. The age of the threat matters not; ask Camdodes who faced the child soldiers of the Khmer Rouge as young as eight. Ask those from African countries where child soldiers as young would cut off your balls and stuff them in your mouth while you are watching in horror. You have had the privilege of living in the therapeutic society of These Unites States, where your sentimentality and innocence is mainstreamed. You have no clue of the real world. I wish you to never be faced with a ‘child’ holding you at bay with a firearm who tells you he is going to kill you, you will die a fool. Wander around the West Side of Chicago on a Friday or Saturday evening in the summer. See what happens.
Sir, you know nothing about me. What I am rueing is the fact that you men are celebrating the murder of a 15-year-old child. And all of those other cases you mentioned those child soldiers are armed and dangerous. This one, while having the appearance of being armed and dangerous, actually was not.
When a society degrades to the point where the purported good men are celebrating the death of a child then that Society is no longer a society.
Whatever you think about this kid he couldn’t do any harm. Period! He didn’t have a firearm.