Police shoot teenager Tyler Cassidy dead in Northcote, Melbourne.

THE family of a 15-year-old shot dead by police at a Melbourne skate park has vowed to fight to find out what happened.

Police said Tyler Cassidy yelled: "Kill me, I'm going to kill you," as officers warned him to put down his weapons and capsicum spray twice failed to subdue him.

"I promise you my darling, I will fight for you as you were taken from me under the most horrific circumstances," the victim's mother Shani said.

"Why was he slayed to death when it was so unnecessary? Four officers were not capable of managing the situation."

"We look forward to a serious and thorough investigation and inquest into why Tyler was killed and to the serious nature of the attending officers' actions."

The youth died after being shot in the chest by three police officers in a skatepark at the All Nations park near the Northcote Plaza Shopping Centre.

Police today rejected family claims they were "trigger happy" after the teenager's death.

It has emerged that Tyler joined the "white pride" anti-immigration group Southern Cross Soldiers four months ago.

Members of the Southern Cross Soldiers, who admit having criminals and neo-Nazis in their ranks, are among those who have left tributes on his MySpace page.

One of those who knew Tyler, and attests to his violent temper, told the Herald Sun that unless the police shot Tyler, he would have made good on his threat to kill the officer.

"Since he joined the SCS and started hanging out some mates he called 'skinhead mates' he started drinking excessively and getting much more violent," Tyler's former friend said.

"The officers that shot him most definitely had good reason with the way he was and if they didn't do what they did he wouldn't have stopped."

A witness to the shooting, Hariet Stewart, said she heard seven shots fired, the Herald Sun reports.

Police say Tyler had threatened them with kitchen knives stolen from a Kmart store before they were forced to fire.

Ms Stewart, 29, who lives close to the All Nations Park in Northcote where the shooting happened, was walking home from the shops when she saw the teen running around carrying two knives.

“I’m not easily scared and I quickly went into hiding myself, having seen him, but he was just a kid," she said.

“From what I could tell, he looked like he was either incredibly angry or on ice or something.

“I thought perhaps he had a vendetta."

Police have strongly defended their handling of the drama and said they were left with no choice.

“I don’t believe that police are trigger-happy," Assistant Commissioner Tim Cartwright told reporters this morning.

"This is a dreadful tragedy to lose a young man, both for police and the community."

The entire incident took less than three minutes to unfold, but police had done everything possible to avoid his death, he said.

"They've ultimately had no choice," Mr Cartwright said.

He said this morning that a female constable from Preston was among three members who fired their guns. The others were a leading senior constable and a senior constable from Northcote.

Police have refused to say whether the use of Tasers might have saved Mr Cassidy's life, but their union has renewed calls for permission to use the devices.

Mr Cartwright said police followed training that taught them to aim for the "central body mass" of an attacker.

"In the movies you can shoot to disarm people, but that’s not what happens in our experience," he said.

Police shoot teenager dead in stand-off

Victorian police shot a 15-year-old boy dead after he allegedly threatened them with knives in Melbourne's inner-east last night.

Police say three officers shot the boy after the use of capsicum spray had no effect.

Homicide and Ethical Standards police are investigating the shooting.

Police say the stand-off started when officers were called to Northcote Plaza about 9:40pm (AEDT) and found a boy in the car park holding two knives.

Two police officers walked up to the teenager and tried to speak with him.

They say he then ran to a nearby skate park, where he again threatened officers with two knives.

When he continued acting aggressively police used capsicum spray but it had no effect.

It is believed the teenager then approached one of the officers, waving the knives.

Police again tried to calm him but he continued to threaten them.

Assistant Commissioner Tim Cartwright says officers had no choice but to open fire.

"He's continued to approach them at which stage three of the four members have fired at the young man, fatally wounding him," he said.

"He's fallen to the ground and died at the scene.

"We shouldn't lose members of the community this way. We train our police members, they foamed him, they've talked to him, they've done what they can. It's a dreadful event."

Police are investigating reports the teenager stole the knives from a shop inside Northcote Plaza.

Father Peter Norden from the Victorian Criminal Justice Coalition wants an independent investigation into the fatal shooting.

He is warning against a "closed shop" investigation by police, to justify the use of deadly force.

"The use of capsicum spray and a violent confrontation is often the worst possible response to a young person displaying emotional or psychiatric symptoms," he said.

"The Victorian community calls for a more sophisticated response in dealing with disturbed individuals, particularly very young people."

this happened in a park i used to frequent a lot. from what i've read and watched in the news, it sounds like the kid was trying to get the cops to shoot him. the police tried talking him down, and pepper spraying him twice. i really don't think tasers would've subdued him if the spray didn't work. both of those things don't work on everyone, especially if you're on drugs or completely lost your shit. he was running around threatening people and telling them to call the cops. he ran into a liquor shop, threatenting the employees and telling them to call the cops. the cops have just done what they're trained to do. they talked him down, didn't work. pepper sprayed him twice, didn't work. and when he started advancing on one of the policemen saying he'd kill them, they shot him. the guns our cops use here aren't the most powerful from what i've been told, so it's understandable to fire a few times. just unfortunate that the three of them reacted together.

what do you think? excessive? could the police have done more to stop the kid? do you think they responded to their training reasonably? unreasonably?

While I think this is a very unfortunate situation, I don't believe that the police acted unreasonably. I'm not sure if a taser would have worked on him but I think that they should have tried tasers instead of firing at him. He must have been very mentally disturbed and probably with time in jail or something, he could become rehabilitated again. Unfortunately this wasn't the case. (if this doesn't make sense-tell me, I'm very sleep-deprived)

Despite the police doing all they could to calm he, he was still under control. I think he was mentally disturbed.

* calm him

* he was still OUT OF control (not under control) ...Gosh...

Tiredness is not doing my grammar any justice at all right now :S

lol.

apparently one of his own friends said if he were the police he'd have shot him as well because the friend knew what he was capable of. that's pretty serious if your mates are saying that :-/

i hope my friends never say that.

Wow... It'd suck to be him with a reputation like that (even before getting shot) ;D

"the guns our cops use here aren't the most powerful"

how is a gun not powerful? i think 4 peopl could handle a person just fine. no matter how crazy or big or whatever they are. you could have shot him in the leg without killing him. and then called for an ambulance to treat his wound. how stupid.

The reason the police aren't allowed to aim for arms and legs is there is a high chance of missing the bullet entering someone else.

Then aim for the torso or something instead of the heart to kill him. he could have been on drugs or something too to make him that way. killing him is not an answer, but i mean if the guy charged at the cop and had somethign in his hands they have every right to shoot him just not kill him..

Nearly any shot in the torso would kill you, liver, lungs, stomach, intestines

dont they have any rubber bullets or any bean bags they can shoot at them like they have in the US? or what? those are so powerful they knock you on your arse... if a taser doesnt work nor spray they can still result in something that is non lethal. ...

If a taser wont work, neither would a rubber bullet or a bean bag.

why do you say if a taser wont work neither would a rubber bullet or bean bag? have you seen the amounts of severity those can cause compared to a stupid taser? there are other ways then just killing a person who is acting stupid. Non lethal force. I don't see how a taser and a rubber bullet and bean bag compare to a taser? ever seen future weapons? i watched a bean bag take out a US MARINE guy who was like 300 lbs and could take a taser no problem while standing there, fall down in agony over a shot fired from a non lethal gun with a beanbag or rubber bullet. surely those two do not compare to a simple taser with electricity as force to put someone down to be stablized.

Back at home we saw someone being shot by rubber bullets, he just ran around laughing. Maybe you should be faced with a nutter with a knife, then you might understand it

it i believe depends on the amount of force the gun they are shooting with has to cause a certain amount of impact to a person. and shooting them in certain places in the body not just shoot whenever they feel like it.

and i also know that the miltary uses these tactics with non lethal force also. so if it didnt work obviously they wouldnt be using it.

i dont believe the kid they were shooting at was superman and could resist any electrical force and force from impact from a rubber bullet or bean bag. Violence doesnt solve anything, and a bruise or a broken bone is better then taking someones life away.

Actually, tasers are often resisted because when on certain drugs or with certain alcohol levels the recipient of the taser basically can't feel it.
This little shit got shot.
And he deserved it.
Violence doesn't solve anything? I guess someone forgot to tell him that. He was old enough to know damn better.

OMG BEAN BAG!

Ha yea i know he deserved to get shot i just think that they should always use other methods and i know taser didnt work and they did what was best for the guy charging at him it was only protection to shoot. which i would have done in the same situation who knows when ppl are just crazy freaks.. to bad they cant use tranquilizers like they do with big angry animals hahaha! or shoot him with netting that cannot be cut with a knife and wrap his arse up in it so he cant move ha!

yea and i dont blame them for shooting him either if he was so crazy like that distructing property and yelling at other people and causing risk and harm to others. maybe he is just better dead cuz thats what he wanted anyway. you cant fix stupid! hehehe

Lol. Yes, because you can't die from a gun shot to the torso. That was sarcasm by the way. Do you realise how many vital organs and blood vessels you have in your abdomen? You know the major artery leaving your heart? That supplied the rest of your body with blood (and oxygen)? Where do you think it goes when it leaves the heart? The abdomen! Put a bullet through that, and you don't even have minutes to live... you have seconds.

If you shoot someone in the leg and manage to hit their femoral artery then they could bleed to death in minutes. It's hardly as easy as calling an ambulance to treat the wound.

ok i think you mis understood. obviously some guns are more powerful than others. our police are not given the highest caliber guns. we have pretty strict gun control laws.

i think you're being a bit naive about this situation.

police are not trained to shoot at limbs or heads, because you can easily miss and injure someone else. so that's why they aim at the torso like you said. it's a big area that contains lots of organs and ateries. they didn't all aim right at his heart, they just aimed at the big area that is your torso and all fired three shots each. six shots into your torso will more than likely kill you, even if they each miss your heart completely. i don't believe they were aiming to kill this kid, just stop him. but because they all reacted there was no way he'd have survived.

this guy was a complete loose canon. if pepper spray wasn't working, then tasers and rubber bullets wouldn't either. some people are just not affected by things like that, especially if they're out of their mind on drugs. if you've never been cracked out on any kind of drug, or been completely psychotic, then you cannot understand this. i've seen tasers and spray not effect people in the slightest because they were so high they couldn't feel anything. a taser in this situation may have missed and hit one of the police, so they probably wouldn't have used them anyway.

all the non-lethal force methods failed, so you can't say "oh they didn't use it" they used all the methods they were trained to but the crazy kid weilding knives and advancing on a fellow officer did not respond to any, so they fired a warning shot [also non lethal!] and he still kept coming. it's unfortunate that all three officers fired, but i think if you had a mentally unbalanced individual with huge knives waving them in your face, you'd have shot him too.