Tragedy struck the Brown family in the wee hours of Feb. 6, when Devin Brown was shot 10 times by Los Angeles Police Department officer at the end of a car chase.

The chase began when officers spotted a maroon Toyota Camry run a red light. The officers had followed the vehicle near the Harbor Freeway when Brown lost control of the stolen Toyota Camry and apparently drove onto the sidewalk.

Taking advantage of the situation, the officers parked their car behind the Toyota. A 14-year-old passenger then fled the scene.

Panicked, being an unlicensed driver and driving a stolen vehicle, Devin Brown made a judgement which caused him to lose his life. Trying to escape from the officers after losing control of the car, Brown backed up the Toyota, prompting Officer Steve Garcia to fire 10 times, killing Devin.

At the time of the shooting, officers feared their lives for whatever reason, which made them fire when Brown backed the vehicle to flee from officers once again. This is what made them shoot the scared little boy who had made a humongous mistake.

Under these circumstances, officers could have dealt with this situation a little differently than they did.

They could have shot the tires so that Brown could not flee. A bullet cannot stop a moving vehicle, which was a bad judgment Officer Garcia made.

Shooting at a vehicle is a last resort for the officers and it’s quite obvious that the situation given was not as bad as to endanger the officers’ lives.

The Los Angeles Police Department should have revised its shooting polices before any incident like this occurred. It always happens that a change is brought into effect after a horrible event has taken place.

A successful attempt was made to revise the shooting policy after the killing of Devin Brown but this change of policies should have been brought in before someone lost their life.

The revised policy prohibits officers from firing at a moving vehicle “unless the officer or another person is being threatened with deadly force by means other than the moving vehicle,” Police Chief William Bratton said in a memo to police commissioners.

Now that the policy has been brought into effect, its still obvious that Officer Garcia could have handled the situation differently.

Devin Brown had stolen a car, was driving without a license and was disobeying the curfew, which prohibits minors from leaving their houses after 10 p.m. unless accompanied by an adult.

These were the only crimes Brown had committed, crimes that could have been corrected. There are so many people out there who do a lot worse and still get away with the crime.

If he had been caught, his time in a detention center and on probation could have taught him a valuable life lesson, but now that is not a possible scenario.

A lot of hardcore criminals seem to get away with anything, and the ones who commit crimes for unexplainable reasons make a wrong decision or are caught at the wrong place at the wrong time end up paying big time, either by losing their life or just spending the rest of their life in prison.

This is not the only incident involving questionable use of power by the police.

Police officers get carried away with the power entrusted by the state to protect its citizens. Officers need to be taught how to listen and to think instead of automatically resorting to using force.

This kind of power should not be given to them; it results in killing a person for some reason like this one.

Officers who kill for no reason should spend time behind bars just anyone else.

If Martha Stewart can do time behind bars for inside trading, so can Officer Garcia for killing Devin Brown.

If you put yourself in Devin Brown’s mother’s shoes you would see that the hate and excruciating pain she feels will not let her live until justice prevails.

The Brown family needs to obtain justice, and once justice is done it will bring some sort of closure to the saddened mother of a 13-year-old who was just testing his wings and could not make a good judgment between what was right and wrong.