Police: Student killed by officers had pellet gun

[Nica_In_Love 98]

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — An armed eighth-grader gunned down by police officers in the hallway of his Texas middle school Wednesday was brandishing a pellet gun that looked like a firearm, and he refused repeated orders to lower the weapon before the officers opened fire, police said.

The carbon-dioxide powered pellet gun 15-year-old Jaime Gonzalez was holding looked like a handgun, and the initial report to police that sent officers rushing to Cummings Middle School Wednesday morning was for a student seen holding a gun, Orlando Rodriguez, Brownsville's interim police chief, said at a news conference.

Robert Valle, a 13-year-old who was among the school's 750 students locked down in their classrooms during the confrontation, said he heard police run down the hallway and yell "put the gun down," before several shots were fired.

"He had plenty of opportunities to lower the weapon ... and he didn't want to," Rodriguez said. Two officers fired three shots, striking Gonzalez at least twice, he said. The autopsy results are pending.

Rodriguez said that before the confrontation with police, Gonzalez walked into a Cummings Middle School classroom and punched another boy in the nose. He said he doesn't know why Gonzalez was brandishing the weapon.

Earlier Wednesday, before police said the weapon was actually a pellet gun, Jaime's godmother Norma Leticia Navarro told The Associated Press she couldn't imagine what led to the fatal confrontation.

"Jaime was not a bad kid, and I wish I could ask him why he did that, why did you put yourself in that position?"

Still, she said she understood that police were doing their job, but she expressed frustration that a child was killed and wondered if something else could have been done.

"I'm not saying he was perfect or an angel, but he was a very giving person."

She said both of his parents work, and that his stepmother raised him from infancy and was very strict with him.

As word of the shooting spread quickly through the city on Texas' southern tip, where violence frequently spills over from Mexico's drug war, frantic parents rushed to reach their children.

Those who got their early on were able to retrieve their frightened children, but some who arrived later found the street outside the school lined with squad cars and blocked off. About two hours after the shooting, 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," Tomalenas said.

The lockdown was lifted about two hours after the shooting, but the students and employees were relocated while officers investigated at the school, Brown said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/police-student-killed-officers-had-pellet-gun-231453248.html

[TBoneTX 48,738]

the city on Texas' southern tip, where violence frequently spills over from Mexico's drug war,

Horseshit. The U.S. media are again mindlessly parroting unsupportable trash.

(COPS = Criminal Organization in Public Service).

Generally speaking and with very few exceptions, U.S. Cops are the lowest life forms among humans. The are cowards, law breakers, the opposite of role models, in short human scum. I have zero respect for them.

This is why they're often referred to as "The Pigs." Bob, is there anything specific that causes you to feel this way? Edited January 5, 2012 by TBoneTX

[Gary and Alla 3,696]

I am not sure why we allow Police to have guns. Better that we just do that ourselves. I have nnot seen any pellet guns I would mistake for a real handgun at any distance where it could be of danger to me anyway.

Police should probably be better trained before we give them guns at the very least.

[B_J 2,752]

Here's a picture of the pellet gun.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45886149/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/#.TwXjQFbNldJ

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

I was thinking this was probably a suicide.

[_Simpson_ 250]

I do agree with the parents on this one, it does seem a little excessive. The kid was not around any other students. They shot him in the back of the head, why couldn't they just wound him first. I picture some amped up cops looking for some action.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I guess they finally found a cure for stupid.

[Robert&Karen 264]

Sounds like suicide by cop at first, then maybe the kid was so scared he was not even thinking right. Anyone taking a gun to school after Columbine is an idiot. This is not show and tell, people freak at guns in schools nowadays. We all know the results of guns in schools (always bad) so anyone who does this knows what they are getting into.

s for cops being low lifes, I hope you never need one.

[Darnell 8,480]

I guess they finally found a cure for stupid.

OMG - I'm a gonna comment on this one.

The stupid label fits this fella (the dead pellet-gun-wielding fella)

as

it's exceptionally rare to be 15 years old and still in the 8th grade.

[Robert&Karen 264]

OMG - I'm a gonna comment on this one.

The stupid label fits this fella (the dead pellet-gun-wielding fella)

as

it's exceptionally rare to be 15 years old and still in the 8th grade.

We start grade 1 at ages 5 or 6, so add 7 years and you get 12 or 13. Yup, may be a typo on the age? Very out of place.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

We start grade 1 at ages 5 or 6, so add 7 years and you get 12 or 13. Yup, may be a typo on the age? Very out of place.

They got this thing in some school districts, where you have to be socially developed enough just to start Kindergarten. Social development seems to be more important that reading, writing, or math skills. I know of at least two cases where the kids had to start school later than normal. Not because they were not smart, just that their hippie parents didn't show them how to interact with humans properly.

Edited January 7, 2012 by ☼

[Darnell 8,480]

Ya, #### all, these exceptions caused the fella to be killed.

What's yer stance, now?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Ya, #### all, these exceptions caused the fella to be killed.

What's yer stance, now?

Don't know the kid. I heard some of the 911 tape. They gave him plenty of opportunity to surrender while he walked down the hall to the principal's office waving the gun around. They shot him once in the leg and once in the torso. He fell and his head hit the ground causing the head injury.

Something was not right with the kid. Somebody dropped the ball(parents? teachers? guardians?), and he is dead. I don't see how the cops could have responded any differently.

[Darnell 8,480]

I'm gonna guess that he found some PCP, and ingested it, on the 'day of'.

Let's see what the autopsy reveals.

My apologies for the veiled personal attack.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I'm gonna guess that he found some PCP, and ingested it, on the 'day of'.

Let's see what the autopsy reveals.

My apologies for the veiled personal attack.

'Taint no big thing.

Stupidity seems to be the normal mental state of teenage males, probably due to the excessive testosterone in their blood streams interfering with cognitive reasoning development. Lucky for most of them, by the time they hit 18 that will peak, and gradually diminish for the rest of their adult lives.