A 14-year-old boy was shot at by a police detective in Baltimore as he was suspected of carrying a firearm, which was later found to be a spring air-powered BB gun. The teenager, identified as Dedric Colvin, was shot in the shoulder and leg, his mother claimed. He was taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital following the incident.

On 27 April, at 4pm local time, two detectives from the intelligence section of the police department were driving in 1100 block of East Baltimore Street when they spotted the boy carrying an object resembling a semiautomatic pistol, said police commissioner Kevin Davis.

The commissioner added that the detectives went up to the boy and identified themselves as officers. They told him to stop, but he began running, which forced them to chase him for about 150 yards. After that one of the detectives shot the boy. Davis explained that the boy suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Without declaring the boys name, police only said that he was 13 years old. They released a photograph of the gun the boy was carrying, which reportedly appeared to be a Daisy brand PowerLine Model 340 spring-air pistol, the Baltimore sun reported.

Further, Davis claimed that he too could have mistaken the spring-air gun for a firearm. I looked at it myself today, I stood right over top of it, I put my own eyes on it. Its an absolute, identical replica semiautomatic pistol. Those police officers had no way of knowing that it was not, in fact, an actual firearm. It looks like a firearm, the commissioner said.

Volanda Young, the boys mother, said she found out about the incident from her older son, Alvin. She saw Dedric bleeding on a street near a basketball court. She alleged that instead of informing her about her sons condition, the police handcuffed her and took her to the police station for enquiry. Two hours later she was taken to the hospital to see her son.