The sheriff's office released a statement saying, "The Sheriff will cooperate fully with the FBI and welcomes their participation. The Sheriff also wants to express his thankfulness to the community for how peaceful and respectful the memorials and protests have been in the aftermath of this incident. The Sheriff continues to express his sympathy to the Lopez family and the community."
On Friday hundreds of students marched to protest the shooting death of 13-year-old Andy Lopez. On Tuesday he was shot seven times by a sheriff's deputy who believed a replica AK-47 that Lopez was carrying was the real thing.
Hundreds also attended a vigil Thursday night for the young teen for a second night in a row.
In recent memory no one can remember this much outrage in Santa Rosa. Children and teens participated in a march that ended at the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department.
It is the adults who usually set examples and the children who follow. However, in Santa Rosa on Friday the opposite happened.
"Andy was my friend. We had to do this for him," said Steven Morrison Jr., a middle school student.
A Sonoma County sheriff's deputy shot him seven times, hitting him in the chest, the hip, and extremities, after mistaking a toy replica of an AK-47 pellet gun that Andy had, for the real thing.
"I don't know what happened to those cops, but that was wrong," said Jamie Cutforth, a middle school student.
The kids either walked out of class or never showed up to Cook Middle School on Friday. High schoolers, college kids and even teachers joined them in the demonstration.
"This is their friend, this is their family, this is their neighbor, this is their school," said Laurie Krause, a teacher.
Within an hour, they arrived at their sheriff's headquarters, only to find the front door closed and locked.
As deputies looked down from the roof and Andy Gomez's parents from the side, the kids took over a 200 square foot patch of freshly poured concrete. They wrote: "RIP Andy Lopez" and nobody stopped them. Not today in their controlled rage.
"It's crazy. I can't believe we started all of this," said Holly Lica, a high school student.
What is harder yet for them to believe is the circumstances that led to this in the first place.
