凍結 天然氣 火車

Police kill armed 8th-grader in Texas school

Jan. 4, 2012 02:35 PM

Associated Press

BROWNSVILLE, Texas -- The morning bell had rung and students were settling into their first period classes Wednesday when a voice broke in over the public address system: Cummings Middle School was on lockdown.

As teachers initiated the school's emergency procedures, locking their classroom doors, turning off the lights, drawing the shades, and calming their confused and worried charges, some students took comfort by climbing under their desks. One boy said he heard police officers charge down the hallway and shout "put down the gun." Then shots, three of them, most students said.

The officers shot and killed an eighth-grade student who pointed a handgun at them, Brownsville police detective J.J. Trevino told The Associated Press. The 15-year-old, whose name police and district officials didn't immediately release, was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead.

Investigators were trying to determine why the boy had the gun at school and whether he fired any shots, Trevino said.

"It's still under investigation, as far as how he came about to bringing the weapon or if he encountered anybody or anything else," he said. Police scheduled a news conference for later Wednesday to discuss the case.

News of the incident spread quickly through this border city on Texas' southern tip, and frantic parents rushed to the downtown school to find their children.

Jade Rodriguez, an 11-year-old sixth-grader, said the experience was frightening.

"I was nervous. I was under the desk," she said. Administrators said the school would be closed on Thursday but that students could attend classes at a nearby elementary school if they wished. Jade said she too afraid and would stay home.

With police and district officials saying little about the shooting in its immediate aftermath, those details that did trickle out came mainly from students at the 750-pupil school.

Robert Valle, 13, said he heard police running and yelling "put the gun down" before the gunfire erupted.

Gina Rangel, 14, was in her first period class in the gym when the school went on lockdown. She said friends who were closer to the shooting said the boy was near the cafeteria and had said he was going to kill everyone.

"I am worried (about the school's safety) because if this happened once, kids imitate," said her mother Irma Rangel.

District officials said administrators were quick to call police after the student brandished the handgun at around 8 a.m., shortly after first period classes began. Drue Brown, a district spokeswoman, issued a statement in which she said the officers shot the student after he "engaged" them.

Parents and family members who got to the school quickest 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.

Trevino said investigators hadn't determined whether the student fired any shots, and he said officers had no information on why the student might have had the gun on him.

"It's still under investigation, as far as how he came about to bringing the weapon or if he encountered anybody or anything else," Trevino said.

Opps, the trigger happy pigs killed a child with a pellet gun

Student killed by officers had pellet gun, police say

Jan. 4, 2012 05:55 PM

Associated Press

BROWNSVILLE, Texas -- 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.

Parents demand answers - Pigs say shooting justified

Jamie Gonzalez murdered by police at Cummings Middle School

Texas police kill eighth-grader who wouldn’t drop pellet gun at school; parents demand answers

By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, January 5, 2:34 AM

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — The parents of an eighth grader who was fatally shot by police inside his South Texas school are demanding to know why officers took lethal action, but police said the boy was brandishing — and refused to drop — what appeared to be a handgun.

The weapon turned out to be a pellet gun that closely resembled the real thing, police said late Wednesday, several hours after 15-year-old Jamie Gonzalez was repeatedly shot in a hallway at Cummings Middle School in Brownsville. No one else was injured.

“Why was so much excess force used on a minor?” the boy’s father, Jaime Gonzalez Sr., told The Associated Press outside the family’s home Wednesday night. “Three shots. Why not one that would bring him down?”

His mother, Noralva Gonzalez, showed off a photo on her phone of a beaming Jaime in his drum major uniform standing with his band instructors. Then she flipped through three close-up photos she took of bullet wounds in her son’s body — including one in the back of the head.

“What happened was an injustice,” she said angrily. “I know that my son wasn’t perfect, but he was a great kid.”

Interim Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez said the teen was pointing the weapon at officers and “had plenty of opportunities to lower the gun and listen to the officers’ orders, and he didn’t want to.”

The chief said his officers had every right to do what they did to protect themselves and other students even though there weren’t many others in the hallway at the time. Police said officers fired three shots.

Shortly before the confrontation, Jaime had walked into a classroom and punched a boy in the nose for no apparent reason, Rodriguez said. Police did not know why he pulled out the weapon, but “we think it looks like this was a way to bring attention to himself,” Rodriguez said.

About 20 minutes elapsed between police receiving a call about an armed student and shots being fired, according to police and student accounts. Authorities declined to share what the boy said before he was shot.

The shooting happened during first period at the school in Brownsville, a city at Texas’ southern tip just across the Mexican border. 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.

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

If the boy were 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 students would be able to attend classes at a new elementary school that isn’t being used.

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,” he said Wednesday.

Gonzalez Sr. said he had no idea where his son got the gun or why he brought it to school, adding: “We wouldn’t give him a gift like that.”

He said he last saw his son around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, when the boy said goodbye before leaving to catch the bus to school. And he said nothing seemed amiss the night before when he, his wife and their son went out for nachos then went home and watched a movie.

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.

Two dozen of his son’s friends and classmates gathered in the dark street outside the family’s home Wednesday night. 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.

___

Associated Press writers Diana Heidgerd and Danny Robbins in Dallas, and Mike Graczyk in Houston contributed to this story.

Anaheim police kill man who had BB gun

Anaheim police kill man who had BB gun

January 8, 2012 | 8:49 pm

Anaheim police late Saturday night fatally shot an unidentified man who was carrying what turned out to be a BB gun, a police spokesman said.

Shortly before 11 p.m., several people called police to report seeing a man with a shotgun at an apartment complex on West Ball Road, said Anaheim Police Sgt. Bob Dunn. One of the callers indicated the man was roaming about the carport area of the complex.

Several officers responded and encountered the man in the rear of the complex, Dunn said. Police fired, and the suspect was hit, he said. The suspect, a 36-year-old Anaheim resident, was pronounced dead at the scene. No officers were injured.

Police recovered a gun that they initially believed was a rifle. It later turned out to be a BB gun, Dunn said.

No other information was available. Dunn said the investigation is continuing.

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