In a bizarre incident Monday, an off-duty cop in St. Louis County shot and killed a home invader after a heated altercation on social media over Black Lives Matter.
St. Louis Today published a piece on the weird event that was awkwardly sympathetic toward the suspect, a 20-year-old black man who broke into the police officer’s home before being shot twice in the chest.
A former Affton High School football standout forced his way into a South County home and was shot and killed by an off-duty officer inside after a Facebook dispute over Black Lives Matter apparently boiled over late Saturday afternoon.
That's what can be pieced together from the accounts of police and an uncle of Tyler Gebhard, who said the young man had been struggling with mental health issues.
"He walked over there and into a gunfight," Gebhard's uncle, Patrick Brogan said, drawing on accounts offered by friends of his nephew. "When he got there, he was met with a gun and the guy killed him."
Authorities said Gebhard, 20, and the officer were acquainted, and Gebhard made Facebook threats to the officer's family and “uninvolved members of the community” in advance of the Saturday encounter with the unidentified officer.
Despite the fact that Gebhard lobbed a 50-pound concrete planter through the cop’s home window and thoroughly terrified the guy’s family, St. Louis Today spent a good part of the article detailing Gebhard’s promising football and golf record, “sweetheart” disposition and stellar academic record before mentioning his struggles with bi-polar disorder.
The article didn’t explicitly state that Gebhard’s mental health issues were tied to the break-in. The report did say, however, that Gebhard had reportedly posted about a coming “race war” on his social media page.
The unnamed officer’s wife and two small children were reportedly at home when Gerhard arrived.
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, Belmar said.
Gebhard was shot twice in the chest. He was pronounced dead at St. Anthony’s Hospital.
The strange situation follows a week of contentious debate over tensions between cops -- particularly white ones -- and members of the black community.