'Eighth-grader armed with a pellet gun shot and killed by police' (video)

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/04/us/texas-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Eighth-grader armed with a pellet gun shot and killed by police
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 5:29 AM EST, Thu January 5, 2012




(CNN) -- A 15-year-old student was shot and killed by police after he brandished a weapon in the hallways of a south Texas middle school, officials said Wednesday.

"The student engaged the officers and was shot," the Brownsville Police Department said in a statement.

The weapon turned out to be a pellet gun, CNN affiliate KGBT reported.

But the weapon "certainly convinced the personnel on the scene of its potential threat to them," a Brownsville Police Department spokesman told the affiliate.

An ambulance was called, and it rushed the student to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to Israel Tapia, a spokesman for Cameron County Justice of the Peace Kip V. Johnson Hodge.

No other students or employees were injured.

School officials and students were sent to a nearby high school gymnasium for some time as authorities investigated the shooting.

Sad

The last time I checked, pellet guns are also made with bright orange tips so people know THEY'RE NOT REAL. Were these cops color blind or something?

Sad but from a distance the officer didn't know the kids gun wasn't real or what he might do.

Okay, I want more info to this story. I want to know why they felt the need to bust off in a school. Were there kids around? Were they called because someone had a gun? I hope this isn't a case of being trigger happy. In any case, that's terrible.

Damn

Unreal.

My questions are why did the boy even have a pellet gun there in the first place and why couldn't the officer just shoot to wound the kid if he believed he was that big a threat.

Nystyle709 wrote:Okay, I want more info to this story. I want to know why they felt the need to bust off in a school. Were there kids around? Were they called because someone had a gun? I hope this isn't a case of being trigger happy. In any case, that's terrible.

The article I read states that the boy (who was 15 years old by the way) had walked into a classroom and punched another kid in the nose for no apparent reason. He then pulled out a gun (a pellet gun that appeared to be a real handgun with no obvious orange tip) and was brandishing the weapon, then ended up in the hallway with several police telling him to put down the gun. Classroom doors had been locked and students were hiding while they heard the police ordering the boy to put down the gun. The boy would not put down the gun and so the officers shot three times, he was hit twice.

You know who I feel sorry for in this case? The officers! Because now they have to live with the fact that they killed a kid for the rest of their lives. A stupid kid who chose to brandish a real looking weapon at school and ignore the police. From the details of the story so far, the police followed procedure and did absolutetly the right thing and as far as I'm concerned this idiot kid absolutely deserved to get shot. Anyone stupid enough to bring a weapon to school in this day an age, then stupid enough to brandish it in front of police officers after being ordered to drop it is too stupid to live! It's no wonder that he was 15 and still in the 8th grade! If he was smarter, he might still be alive. One less dumbass out there to grow up and "breed" more idiots into the world. Darwin wins again!

captainbryce wrote: ... Anyone stupid enough to bring a weapon to school in this day an age, then stupid enough to brandish it in front of police officers after being ordered to drop it is too stupid to live! It's no wonder that he was 15 and still in the 8th grade! If he was smarter, he might still be alive. One less dumbass out there to grow up and "breed" more idiots into the world. Darwin wins again!

There is always the possibility that this was a "suicide by police," which is becoming more common, tho usually adult males.

Also, a pellet gun (not a BB gun) at close range can be deadly. The police actually were in danger. Ppl forget that "air rifles" were used in hunting in the 18th Century. It does not need a big bang to shoot a projectile thru something.

And, cops don't shoot to wound. No one in a firefight is that kind of aim. They are taught to aim for the chest, the biggest target area that will take a perp down. Ppl only get winged intentionally or have guns shot out of their hands in the movies.