Police kill armed student, 15, inside Texas School

[Luis337]

Holy crap.
-------------------------------

Police kill armed student, 15, inside Texas school


EDINBURG, Texas | Wed Jan 4, 2012 1:02pm EST

(Reuters) - Police fatally shot an armed eighth-grade student at a middle school in Brownsville, Texas, on Wednesday morning after he pointed a gun at officers, police said.

Brownsville police received a call of a 15-year-old boy with a handgun at Cummings Middle School about 8 a.m. local time Wednesday, department spokesman J.J. Trevino said.

The boy aimed at officers after they confronted him in a hallway, prompting officers to fire, Trevino said.

"The subject pointed the weapon at officers, which in turn, the officers had to use deadly force," Trevino said.

A school district official said the boy was armed with a rifle.

The student was shot three times and rushed to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, said Cameron County Justice of the Peace Kip Johnson Hodge.

Police have not released the student's identity, and a motive has yet to be established.

"That is still under investigation as to a reason why he was in possession of that particular weapon," Trevino said.

No other students, school staff or police were injured, Trevino said. Students were evacuated to a nearby high school and classes were dismissed for the day.

The school remained locked down for two hours after the incident, and SWAT officers searched the building "room by room," said Drue Brown, public information officer for the Brownsville Independent School District.

Brownsville is at the southern tip of Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border, near the mouth of the Rio Grande about 280 miles south of San Antonio.

(Reporting by Jared Taylor and Jim Forsyth; Editing by Daniel Trotta)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/04/us-school-shooting-texas-idUSTRE8031I720120104

[iOWNme]

I wonder what kind of STATE sanctioned medication this young man was on?


There once was a time when Peace Officers roamed our streets. Their entire goal in life was to DEFUSE situations, and bring PEACE back to the community.

Do you have any idea how many times a day Kop's point their weapons at people WITH NO THREAT to their lives? I'll give you a hint: MILLIONS.

[madfranks]

Don't believe anything they tell you, meaning they say the kid was pointing a gun at the cops, do I believe it? Not for a second, that's just their first and easiest excuse to use after they kill someone.

And for the record, when my dad was a kid, he and my uncle used to bring their .22 rifles to school because they had a long walk both ways and would shoot rabbits on the way home. Did that cause the whole school to go into full panic/riot mode, lock the school down and call a swat team in to kill them? Nope.

[woodman]

It was probably an air rifle.

[Luis337]

More on this, it was a pellet gun

---------------------------------------


Texas police kill 8th-grader carrying pellet gun
By Christopher Sherman
Associated Press / January 5, 2012

BROWNSVILLE, Texas—Police shot and killed an eighth-grader in the hallway of his middle school Wednesday after the boy brandished what looked like a handgun and pointed it at officers. It turned out to be a pellet gun that closely resembled the real thing.

Fifteen-year-old Jaime Gonzalez "had plenty of opportunities to lower the gun and listen to the officers' orders, and he didn't want to," Interim Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez said.

Shortly before the confrontation, the boy had walked into a classroom and punched a random boy in the nose for no apparent reason, police said. Investigators did not know why he pulled out the weapon.

"We think it looks like this was a way to bring attention to himself," the police chief said. He said the officers' actions were justified and no one else was hurt.

Authorities declined to share what the boy said before being shot.

The shooting happened during first period at Cummings Middle School in Brownsville. Teachers locked classroom doors and turned off lights, and some frightened students dove under their desks. They could hear police charge down the hallway and shout for Gonzalez to drop the weapon, followed by several shots.

Two officers fired three shots, hitting Gonzalez at least twice, police said.

The boy's father, Jaime Gonzalez Sr., said he had no idea where his son got the gun or why he brought it to school.

"We wouldn't give him a gift like that," he told The Associated Press from the family's home, where other relatives and friends of his son were gathering Wednesday night.

He said nothing seemed amiss when he, his wife and their son went out for nachos the night before, then went home and watched a movie. He said he last saw his son Wednesday morning, when the boy said goodbye before leaving to catch the bus to school.

Gonzalez Sr. was struggling to reconcile the day's events, saying his son seemed to be doing better in school and was always helpful around the neighborhood mowing neighbors' lawns, washing dogs and carrying his toolbox off to fix other kids' bikes.

Both he and his wife, Noralva, questioned why police repeatedly shot at their son and called the shooting unjustified.

"Why was so much excess force used on a minor?" he asked. "Three shots. Why not one that would bring him down?"

His wife, who demanded that the officers be punished, added: "What happened was an injustice."

Rodriguez said his officers "took the necessary action to protect themselves and the other kids." There weren't many others in the hall at the time, but "they had every right to take the action that they took."

The boy's godmother, Norma Leticia Navarro, said she couldn't imagine why he would have brought a gun to school.

"I wish I could ask him why he did that, `Why did you put yourself in that position?'"

She said she understood that police were doing their job, but she wondered if other steps could have been taken.

"Jaime was not a bad kid," she said. "I'm not saying he was perfect or an angel, but he was a very giving person."

David A. Dusenbury, a retired deputy police chief in Long Beach, Calif., who now consults on police tactics, said the officers were probably justified in their actions.

If the boy was raising the gun as if to fire at someone, "then it's unfortunate, but the officer certainly would have the right under the law to use deadly force."

Administrators said the school would be closed Thursday but that students could attend classes at a nearby elementary school if they wished.

Superintendent Carl Montoya remembered Gonzalez as "a very positive young man."

"He did music. He worked well with everybody. Just something unfortunately happened today that caused his behavior to go the way it went. So I don't know."

Gina Rangel was in her first-period class in the gym when the school was locked down. She said friends who were closer to the confrontation heard the boy threaten to kill everyone.

Her mother, Irma Rangel, said she was worried about the school's safety "because if this happened once, kids imitate."

Brownsville, on Texas' southern tip, is beset by spillover violence from Mexico's drug war. As word of the shooting spread through the city, frantic parents rushed to reach their children.

Those who got there early were able to retrieve their kids, but some who arrived later found the street outside the school lined with squad cars and blocked off.

Two hours later, dozens of frustrated parents and relatives flooded out of the park pavilion without their children after school officials announced that all remaining children had been bused to a high school and could be picked up there.

Julie Tomalenas waited for an hour to pick up her 13-year-old sister before being told of the relocation.

"It was very stressful not knowing if she was OK, where she was, when we could see her again," she said.

Wednesday night, two dozen friends and classmates gathered in the dark street outside the family's home. Jaime's best friend, 16-year-old Star Rodriguez, said her favorite memory was when Jaime came to her party Dec. 29 and they danced and sang together.

"He was like a brother to me," she said.

http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2012/01/05/texas_police_kill_8th_grader_carrying_pellet_gun/?page=2

[Cebu_4_2]

I hope there is some video of this incident, I don't believe the story as it is.

[TomD]

The only thing that is known with certainty is that some kid took a pellet gun (and most modern pellet guns are damned realistic looking) to school, punched some other kid for no reason and started walking around the halls with the gun. Quite frankly, pulling the same stunt almost anywhere in the world will get you dead, and rapidly, with a high probability. Anyone who thinks it is relevant that the "weapon" was a pellet gun is clueless.

On the face of it, I'd say that the preponderance of the known circumstances is strongly in favor of a justified shooting. But I wasn't there and there will be an investigation. If, for example, there is camera footage of the kid tossing the "weapon" on demand and getting shot anyway, the known facts will have changed.

If you try to use this particular story as an anti cop example, your prejudices are blinding you. Why would you need to, there are so many real examples of cops gone bad; there are hundreds of real out-of-control cop videos on youtube. When you use examples such as this as an illustration of out of control and violent cops, frankly, your judgement comes into question.

[madfranks]

Don't pellet guns have the bright orange barrel tip so everyone knows it's fake?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NewdGCRIL4w/Terh8LA9vRI/AAAAAAAADBs/041YCNWyxvA/s1600/gun%2BBB%2Bgun.jpg

[TomD]

Don't pellet guns have the bright orange barrel tip so everyone knows it's fake?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NewdGCRIL4w/Terh8LA9vRI/AAAAAAAADBs/041YCNWyxvA/s1600/gun%2BBB%2Bgun.jpg

That, I believe, is an air soft pistol. I've got a couple of recent pellet and BB guns without the orange tip. Here's a link to a sales site for BB and Pellet rifles: http://www.airgundepot.com/popular-pellet-rifles.html

I've got a .22 pellet rifle that will shoot at over 1000 fps and a perfect replica of a Sig pistol that shoots a magazine of 20 BB's at over 500 fps as fast as you can pull the trigger. You would have to look hard and close at the Sig replica to see it was BB rather than 9mm.

BB Sig replica below, try walking around the halls of a school with one of these and see what happens and then blame it on the cops:

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x229/TomD77/temp%20stuff/sig.jpg

[iOWNme]

If you try to use this particular story as an anti cop example, your prejudices are blinding you. Why would you need to, there are so many real examples of cops gone bad; there are hundreds of real out-of-control cop videos on youtube. When you use examples such as this as an illustration of out of control and violent cops, frankly, your judgement comes into question.


I would say that your judgment comes into severe question when you believe what the media has told you. Would you agree?

When somebody has told me 100 lies, i think they are a deceiver. When someone has made 100 mistakes, i think they planned it that way.

[midnight rambler]

Don't believe anything they tell you, meaning they say the kid was pointing a gun at the cops, do I believe it? Not for a second, that's just their first and easiest excuse to use after they kill someone.

And for the record, when my dad was a kid, he and my uncle used to bring their .22 rifles to school because they had a long walk both ways and would shoot rabbits on the way home. Did that cause the whole school to go into full panic/riot mode, lock the school down and call a swat team in to kill them? Nope.

Yet (almost) no one reflects upon "How did we get here??"

[Joe King]

Here's a case of a 14yo with a pellet gun and a sword facing off the police after hacking his great-grandmother to death because she told him not to play a video game.

In this case they distracted him, sicced a police dog on him and then tazed him. Apparently he didn't point the gun at them.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/14-year-old-slays-great-grandmother-sword-stabs-grandmother-video-game-dispute-article-1.949819

[solid]

Very sad a 15 year old with a pellet gun lost his life. Also very sad, that those cops will have to live with that decision, they made.

I agree with TomD. Look at what happened at Columbine, in CO. The cops didn't react quick enough. They didn't engage the shooter's, because after all "they are just kids"...and lives were lost because cops didn't act, when they should have. All the families, the media, came crashing down on law enforcement to place blame. Columbine forever changed how law enforcement handles possible active shooter scenarios in schools. An 8th grade kid pulls out a gun. What DO you do? Wait for the first shot that could take another kids life? Seriously, what do you do? It's a no win situation, very sad.

[TomD]

I would say that your judgment comes into severe question when you believe what the media has told you. Would you agree?

When somebody has told me 100 lies, i think they are a deceiver. When someone has made 100 mistakes, i think they planned it that way.

My thought is that to disbelieve 100% of what the media says is quite a bit more absurd than to believe 100%. The media has lied to you considerably more than 100 times but you get glimmerings of truth in there. Your task is to find which is which. But just to assume that information input is 100% untrue puts you in an untenable position relative to your personal ordering of the universe because the set of that which is not true is infinitely larger than the set of that which is true. The assumption that all is untrue is dealing in an infinite set and therefore gives you no information at all.