As Jor’Dell Richardson’s family prepares to bury him, several investigations are looking into whether a pellet gun the teen was carrying gave the Aurora police officer who shot the him reason to fear for his life.

When Richardson was shot, he was hiding a pellet gun in his clothing which was an exact replica of a real firearm.

Richardson’s attorneys have characterized the pellet gun as “a toy” but if the officer felt his life was in danger because he couldn’t tell it was not a firearm, the shooting may be ruled as justified.

The presence of a weapon, real or lifelike, likely escalated an already intense situation, according to one firearms expert.

“That kid wasn’t carrying an actual firearm but his behavior made it seem like he was,” said Sedgrick Myles, a Denver firearm instructor.

Richardson, 14, was shot to death by an Aurora police officer after he and four other suspects were spotted possibly casing businesses in an Aurora shopping center at 8^th and Dayton.

The five teens, who were wearing hospital masks and hoodies, entered a store and committed an armed robbery. Police didn’t know about the robbery when they gave chase.

Investigative sources who wished not to be identified told The Denver Gazette that Richardson was the only one in the group who had a weapon and that it was given to him by someone else.

Aurora Police Chief Art Acevedo identified the weapon in a June 9 press conference as a pellet gun. It was a turnaround from his earlier public statements, when he indicated that Richardson was carrying a semi-automatic firearm pistol.

“How would you respond if someone pointed that at you?” Acevedo asked the press, a side-by-side comparison photo of real and fake weapons shown on an overhead projector.

When questioned about the week-long omission, Acevedo explained that he did not find out the truth about the replica weapon until June 8, a day before the press conference.

At a rally before the press conference, Jor’Dell’s father Jameco said, “When he said that my son didn’t have a gun, that it was a fake gun … I knew it, because that ain’t our boy.”

A pellet gun shoots steel bbs using compressed CO2. The weapon Richardson was carrying was made to look almost exactly like a real 9mm handgun.

But some suggest that police ought to be taught to identify the difference between a hand gun and a replica made to look like the real thing.

“You have a duty as a trained officer to know there are items that upon first glance look like the real thing but they are not,” said civil rights lawyer Tyrone Glover. “You can’t bury your head in the sand and pretend these replica guns don’t exist.”

Glover added cops have been known to mistake a soft drink can or a cellphone for a gun and shoot people over it.

But Craig Appel, a former Aurora homicide detective who is now a criminal defense investigator, said that in an intense life-threatening situation, it’s impossible for the police to be able to discern a real weapon from a fake one with seconds on the line.

“It makes a split second decision even harder,” said Appel.

In the moments leading up to Jor’Dell Richardson’s death, “they were running and the kid is reaching for something in his waistband, which is indicative with a weapon. The officer doesn’t know because everything he saw indicated the kid has a weapon on him,” explained Appel. “If the kid would have raised his hands out like a goalpost and complied with the officer’s orders, he might be alive today.”

Appel noted that often pellet guns like the one Richardson was carrying are marked with an orange or red tip to label them as less dangerous. “The kid was carrying a pellet gun that resembled a real gun and we have to ask why would he be carrying a gun that looked real?” said Appel.

The controversy over the pellet gun started a week after Richardson was killed.

Two Aurora police detectives with the Gang and Robbery Investigation Team had answered a call on the boys from a gang unit colleague.

The body cam footage showed Roch Gruszecska and James Snapp chase Richardson into a nearby alley where there was a scuffle and the boy was tackled.

The video showed that three seconds after Gruszecska yelled, “Gun! Let go of the (expletive) gun!” Richardson surrendered. “Stop. Please – you got me,” said Richardson.

Four seconds after Richardson’s surrender, Gruszecska shot him in the stomach.

The time between Gruszecska’s order and the gunshot was around 7 seconds.

That was plenty of time, Glover said, for Gruszecska to think about whether or not to pull the trigger.

“This isn’t a millisecond decision. NBA championships have been lost in 7 seconds. When Richardson gave up, the threat was neutralized.”

Glover said Richardson didn’t point what he referred to as his “toy gun” at the officers because the teen knew it wasn’t real.

“This was not a justified retribution,” said Glover.

But though a pellet gun uses compressed gas instead of an explosive, it is still considered a deadly weapon under Colorado law.

The state statute’s definition of a deadly weapon is described as “A knife, bludgeon or any other weapon, device, instrument, material or substance, whether animate or inanimate, that, in the manner it is used or intended to be used, is capable of producing death or serious bodily injury.”

The pellet gun Richardson was carrying sells on Amazon for $46.95.

Many Amazon customers who reviewed this style of pellet gun after they bought it liked the fact that, visually, it duplicated an actual handgun.

“Everyone that sees it thinks it’s real,” wrote one person.

“If it was a real gun, I would be raising hell,” noted another.

One person who commented said that the pellet gun felt real to the touch and another wrote that the replica gun weighed about the same as a real one.

In actuality, the pellet gun similar to the one Richardson was carrying, with a polymer frame and metal barrel, weighs 1.6 pounds, according to the Amazon ad.

The real version, unloaded, is .6 pounds heavier.

Often, there’s an obvious way to differentiate between a pellet gun and firearm.

Myles said replica guns are often marked with a bright orange chip on the outside so that people can distinguish them from the real thing “because of issues like this particular shooting, I’m not a fan of replica guns because they can be mistaken,” he said.

Myles said a police officer should be able to tell a pellet gun from a firearm because the actual handgun is heavier than the replica due to its heavy metal slide.

On the other hand, Myles acknowledged the suspect’s behavior put officers on alert. “They took off running and that made it even worse,” said Myles.

There are three investigations into the June 1 Richardson shooting.

The incident is being investigated by the 18^th Judicial District’s Critical Incident Response Team parallel to the Aurora Police Department’s own internal investigation. APD is also investigating the robbery which took place before the shooting.

Appel said there are still many important pieces of information we don’t know which will be crucial as to whether Richardson’s shooting death was justified.

“We still don’t have the autopsy report which will determine the angle of the shot. What was the distance of the gun to the wound – six inches or two feet away? Were they both struggling?”

Glover said the Richardson shooting is going to put police training under a microscope … again.

“There is something ingrained that escalates officers. Unless there’s a culture shift that brings life into police reform, we won’t see change,” said Glover.

He said that veteran officers and young recruits are the ones who are mostly likely to be receptive to the reform.

A community memorial for Jor’Dell Richardson will begin at the Aurora Municipal Center at 5 p.m. Friday followed by a processional march carrying Richardson’s body.