Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that a former high school football star forced his way into an officer's home and was shot and killed after a Facebook argument late Saturday afternoon over Black Lives Matter.
"He walked over there and into a gunfight," said Tyler Gebhard's uncle, Patrick Brogan. "When he got there, he was met with a gun and the guy killed him."
Gebhard, 20, was remembered as a good student and athlete who excelled at football as well as golf, but he waged a long battle with bipolar disorder, according to his uncle: "He had a lot of mental problems the last few months. A lot of difficulties in life."
The uncle said that the biracial Gebhard and the police officer, who apparently knew each other from church, clashed last weekend on Facebook over his nephew's support of Black Lives Matter. Gebhard's Facebook page contained numerous posts about police shootings of black men and the deaths of five officers in Dallas at the hands of a gunman targeting white officers. Some posts are conciliatory, and some devolve into heated arguments and warnings of a "race war." Gebhard made threats on Facebook to the unidentified officer's family and “uninvolved members of the community,” after which Gebhard showed up at the Lakeshire home shortly before 6 p.m.
He threw a 50-pound concrete planter through the window and entered the residence as the officer's wife, mother-in-law and two young children struggled to escape through a bedroom window, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said.
Belmar said Gebhard tossed the planter through the back window after being rebuffed by the officer's wife at the front door. She hid with other family members, including a toddler and an infant, as the off-duty officer went to check on the disturbance.
Members of the family in the bedroom said they heard the officer tell the intruder to “get down, get down, get down,” and then heard several shots fired.
Two of those rounds fired hit Gebhard in the chest. He was pronounced dead at St. Anthony’s Hospital. The officer, a three-year veteran of the department, is now on administrative leave.
"I don’t think the officer had a choice — I honestly don’t,” Belmar told reporters on Saturday, labeling the situation “a very difficult position to be in.”