The Toy Gun and the Black Son episode: A look back to the Dedric Colvin case in Baltimore. Dedric is the African-American 8th-grader who was wounded by a police officer on April 27 after he spotted the boy with what the officer thought was a handgun. It turned out to be a BB gun that resembles a real gun. Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, suggested that police would not have chased and fired on Dedric had he been white. Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, who is white, seemed to agree a few days later, conceding that his own sons, in the same situation, might have been treated differently. But what about parental responsibility and the questionable decision to allow a teenage boy to play with a replica handgun in a city known for gun violence? Heather Harris engages Dan on this subject. She is a professor of business communications at Stevenson University outside Baltimore. She is co-editor of "The Obama Effect," a collection of essays on the 2008 presidential election.