Groups want AG inquiry into boy's death

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (WPRI) - In a news conference Monday afternoon, several Massachusetts groups called for the state's attorney general, Martha Coakley, to start a formal criminal investigation into the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old boy by police.

Massachusetts branches of the NAACP, the ACLU, and the Massachusetts Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights met at the NAACP's New Bedford headquarters to give a statement on a July 2012 report by the Bristol County District Attorney on the incident that led to the death of Malcolm Gracia.

Officers had stopped Gracia on May 27, 2012, having seen him exchange a handshake with another person that the officers believed could have been gang-related. When Gracia wouldn't comply and the conflict escalated, the boy had pulled out a knife and stabbed a police detective in the chest multiple times. He then did not submit after being shot with a stun gun.

The district attorney's inquiry and report claimed police were justified in shooting Gracia.

The report also said that the boy had been suffering from mental illness and was on several medications because of it.