Sheriff: Fatal shooting of 14-year-old 'freak accident'
Xerxes Wilson / Houma Courier 8:52 a.m. CDT September 25, 2014
HOUMA, La. -- Only the handful of terrified teenagers and the Terrebonne Parish sheriff's deputy in the Village East home when Cameron Tillman died can say exactly what happened Tuesday evening, and their stories do not match.
The 14-year-old Tillman was killed by four shots fired by the deputy just before 6 p.m. Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Sheriff Jerry Larpenter defended the deputy, saying the still unnamed seven-year veteran of the department "feared for his life" when confronted by what appeared to be a 45-caliber pistol but was actually a BB gun designed to look like a Sig Sauer .45. Family of the three teenagers who made it out of the house alive claim the deputy had a "killer mentality."
Deputies were called to the ramshackle two-bedroom brick home on Kirkglen Loop east of Houma by a neighbor's report of five or six men "brandishing guns" as they entered the vacant house, Larpenter said.
Within minutes, two deputies parked three houses down from the home. One of the lawmen remained outside, Larpenter said. The other entered the open garage, its plywood walls decorated with the scribbling of the teens who had made the house a regular afternoon hangout since the last tenant left about two years ago.
What happened as the deputy neared the door leading into the home is disputed by the deputy and families involved.
"He knocked on the door and said 'Sheriff's Office, come out.' A very short time after, Tillman threw the door open brandishing that gun toward the officer. The officer feared for his life, and, unfortunately, the individual was shot four times," Larpenter claims. "He (Tillman) turned that gun toward the deputy, and that deputy had to shoot or assume he would be shot."
Family members of the other teens in the house said their children claim Tillman wasn't holding the BB gun when he answered the door. They also dispute the deputy announcing himself as law enforcement, saying Cameron opened the door expecting a friend.
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