15-year-old Darius Smith is dead.

But why?

Well, a U.S. Custom and Border Patrol officer who works at the San Francisco International Airport shot and killed him in Arcadia, California.

But why?

CBS Los Angeles reports that the officer says that Smith and two other black teen boys attacked him and tried to rob him.

The officer apparently had minor bruises after the encounter. He didn’t have to go to the hospital, but Smith and one of his friends did.

And Smith didn’t leave the hospital alive.

“Darius Smith was executed,” Lee Merritt, the lawyer for Smith’s family told ABC7 Los Angeles, “He was not in the midst of a robbery. He was shot twice in the legs first. He was felled. And his shooter got over him and shot him three times in the chest. That’s a murder.”

The officer said that the young men attacked him from behind.

He also said that Smith held a gun to his head while another of the young men hit him in the back of the head.

Which one is it? Is either true?

That’s not clear at this time.

The Sheriff’s Department did find a toy handgun near the scene of the crime, however.

Smith’s mother, Reshawna Myricks, told CBS that’s she’s as confused as she is sad. “First they said no crime was committed. Now there is a crime committed. Now it’s a gun, then they said there was a fight. I don’t know what to believe.”

Neither does the Sheriff’s Department.

They hope that testimony from the two surviving boys as well as footage from nearby security cameras will shed some light on things. Because of the Memorial Day holiday, the officers have not yet been able to get access to that footage — they hope it will be made available to them this week.

“All I know,” Myricks said, “Is my baby gone, and I’ll never know his story.”

Keep an eye here on Blavity for updates — hopefully we’ll all soon know Smith’s story, and justice will be done.

Darius Smith

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