Lawyer: Teen Shot by Police Brain Dead

Associated Press ^ | Saturday, January 14, 2006 | KELLI KENNEDY

[Peace4EarthNow]

LONGWOOD, Fla. - The 15-year-old boy shot by police while brandishing a pellet gun in a middle school bathroom was clinically brain dead Saturday but was being kept alive to harvest his organs, his family's attorney said.

Christopher Penley was expected to die Saturday night, said family attorney Mark Nation.

"His organs are in the process of being harvested," Nation told reporters outside a hospital.

Earlier, Kelly Swofford, a family spokeswoman and neighbor of the boy's parents Ralph and Donna Penley, said the boy had died and that the family was "devastated."

Penley, of Winter Springs, was accused of pulling the pellet gun in a classroom Friday and pointing it at other students before forcing one into a closet, then leading deputies and SWAT team members on a chase that ended in a school bathroom.

When he raised the gun at a deputy, a SWAT team member shot him, authorities said.

Officers who had responded to the 1,100-student school in suburban Orlando believed the gun was a Beretta 9mm, and didn't learn until after the shooting that it was a pellet gun.

Police had said Friday night that the boy was on "advanced life support." The hospital refused to release any information Saturday.

"Everybody in the whole neighborhood is really upset," Paul Cavallini, who lives across the street from the Penleys, said Saturday. "He was a quiet kid — polite and everything. He was just a normal teenager."

However, friends and investigators say he was also bullied and emotionally distraught, and went to school that day expecting to die.

Patrick Lafferty, a 15-year-old neighbor who has known Penley about six years, said he wasn't surprised by what happened. He said Penley was a loner who "told me he wanted to kill himself dozens of times."

[Humal]

"How horrible for everyone involved -- "

This is so right.

[jjm2111]

This is an old article, but I can't help but comment:

Yes, the cop who shot this kid was 'trained' to shoot, but small town PDs should stop spending money on SWAT teams. It seems like judgement is never used in cases like this. Small town PDs should lose the Blackhawk gear and ninja suits and get some old-fashioned common sense.