children-toy-guns1LOS ANGELES – A fifteen-year-old boy playing with a toy gun was shot once in the chest by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy Sunday night. The boy is in stable condition at a local hospital.

A department spokesperson confirmed the shooting to the Los Angeles Times, but declined to give name or age. A witness told KABC-TV Channel 7 that the child was 15.

The incident happened around 8 p.m. after deputies responded to a call from someone in the Palmdale neighborhood saying that someone was riding a bicycle and carrying a gun. The spokesperson said they ordered the person to drop the weapon, but instead he pointed it toward them and a deupty fird one shot, which hit the boy in the upper torso.

It was then that the officers determined that “it was a juvenile playing cops and robbers.”