Lets point out a few things here ok? 1) brandishing a pellet gun that looked like a firearm 2) refused repeated orders to lower the weapon 3) looked like a handgun 4) initial report to police that sent officers rushing to Cummings Middle School Wednesday morning was for a student seen holding a gun 5) plenty of opportunities to lower the weapon I don’t want to say that he deserved to get shot but not listening to the cops and pointing what looks like a gun at them you deserve to get shot for that. 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.
Ayuh,.... So what's the problem.... For all those there at the time, the kid had a Gun.... While it doesn't say, I imagine it was being displayed in a threatening manner, not stuffed in a backpack... Play with fire, ya get Burnt,... Darwin at it's best...
Most of our gun grabber states treat air guns like the real thing under the law so someone actually using one in a crime has no recourse to 'it was only a toy' as a mitigating factor....AND a .22 pellet gun can produce as much of a weapon as a .22 short fired from a real gun...
If it looked like a weapon and he refused several "Put the weapon down" orders, then there's nothing to blame the cops for. Unfortunately, the kid's fatal bout with stupidity will force the cops to live with it for the rest of their lives.
Rejoice!.... Every idiot Darwin removes now, is one less idiot society will be forced to deal with later.
While you can't blame the police for this kids tragic death because how were they to know he only had a pellet gun. What is sad and disgraceful is the posts of making fun and rejoicing at the death of a 13yr old kid.
...I like the part where he wasn't a bad kid...if he wasn't a bad kid why was he even in this position?!?!?...I remember when I was a junior in HS and this kid was showing off a 357...I always thought he was a good kid until I saw this...thugs got to start somewhere... Kabuki Joe
...you and your kind are part of the big problem...if this kid would have had someone at home to keep him in line instead of the soft hand of just a mother, we might not be having this discussion in the first place... Kabuki Joe
I'm not happy at all that a kid is dead, but, on the other hand, how would the police know that it was just a pellet gun? There too many instances of lots of people dying in these situations for the cops to just wait around and see what happens...
Actually any idiot that would find comfort in the death of a 13yr old is the big problem. I believe that the officers did their job and probaly feel pretty bad that they had to kill a 13yr old child. My problem is not with the officers, but with the morons who are clapping their hands and find comfort in the death of a 13 yr old kid.
I am betting it was suicide by cop. Wanted to go out and cause a big scandal. To bad he was such an idiot.
Don't know why people are happy about the kid being killed but this is another example of police justifiably killing someone. They really didn't have a choice here from the sound of it.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. It's probably a good thing this one was removed from the gene pool early on.
I don't think they are making fun, just pointing out mother nature at work. Yet again, the terminally stupid remove themselves from the gene pool and we thank him.
Why did the kid have the pellet gun in the first place? There have been many robberies and drug crimes committed by people with guns like this, the cops find out later the person passed off one of these guns as the real thing. So why did he have a pellet gun at school? Some innocent target practice? Unlikely.
