US guard charged with murder of teen after mistaking toy for gun

An off-duty security guard in a Seattle suburb has been charged with second-degree murder by prosecutors who say he shot a 17-year-old six times in the back as the teen and his friends tried to report a toy gun at a sporting goods store.

King County prosecutors have charged Aaron Brown Myers in the death of Hazrat Ali Rouhani outside a Big 5 sporting goods store in Renton, Washington. Myers, 51, also faces a second-degree assault charge after authorities say he held another teen at gunpoint.

Rouhani and two other teenagers went to the store around 7:30 p.m. on June 5 to return a faulty airsoft gun, Rouhani's friends told police. They walked past Myers, who was sitting in his vehicle waiting to pick up his son from a martial arts class.

Myers told police he noticed a teen carrying what he believed to be a Glock handgun and thought he saw another teen put a gun in his waistband. Thinking he had to stop an armed robbery, Myers told police he did not have time to call 911 and instead got out of the car and pointed his gun at the adolescents.

As Myers approached, one of the teens moved to the side and the other two stopped, raised their hands and one of them placed the airsoft gun on the sidewalk, repeating several times to Myers that it was a “BB gun”, not a firearm.

Myers then pushed one of the boys to the sidewalk and straddled him, according to the probable cause document filed by Renton police. Myers continued to point the gun at Rouhani as he held his hands out in front of him, showing Myers they were empty, police said. Rouhani began to back away and Myers opened fire, hitting the teen once in the right side and six times in the back.

The video shows Rouhani holding his stomach as he falls to the ground, calling for his mother. The other teen ran for cover and called 911. Rouhani died at the scene and police immediately arrested Myers.

Myers' attorney, Michelle Scudder, said in an email that Myers honestly believed he was witnessing the beginning of a violent crime and wanted to stop it before anyone was hurt.

“Mr. Myers and his family are devastated by this tragedy and that it resulted in the loss of a young man's life,” Scudder said. “We are confident that during this investigation, the evidence will show that Mr. Myers’ sole intention that day was to protect himself and others from serious injury or even death.”

Myers said he had a “duty to intervene,” prosecutors said.

“The defendant failed to take the obvious step of securing the toy gun, rather than assaulting the teenager who was carrying it,” Lauren Burke, senior deputy prosecutor for King County, said in a court filing. court.

Myers was being held in King County Jail on $2 million (NZ$3.2 million) bail. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for June 24 in Kent, Washington.

“Only high bail, electronic house arrest and the surrender of all firearms will protect the community from an untrained civilian who believes he has a duty to shoot people who have hurt no one,” Burke said.

It was unclear where Myers worked as a security guard.

Myers had attempted to intervene in what he thought was a crime in March 2022, police said. He called 911 and told police he saw a person on a bicycle pointing a gun at people, police said. He followed the person to a store until police arrived. Officers determined the person did not have a weapon and posed no threat, police said.

“In this case, the defendant attacked three teenagers who had committed no crime and, at each stage of the interaction, chose to escalate the violence, until the defendant took Rouhani's life “Burke said.