Posted on 01/05/2012 1:00:21 AM PST by Iron Munro
A teenager was shot dead by police today after brandishing a pellet gun in the hallway of his school.
Police say 15-year-old Jaime Gonzalez was holding a weapon that looked like a handgun, and refused to lower it when asked to by officers.
The two officers who shot the eighth-grader have been suspended while police carry out an investigation into his death.
The report which sent officers rushing to Cummings Middle School in Brownsville, Texas stated that a student had been seen holding a gun, according to the town's police chief Orlando Rodriguez.
Robert Valle, 13, was among the school's 750 students locked down in their classrooms during the confrontation. He 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,' Mr Rodriguez said.
Two officers fired three shots, striking Gonzalez at least twice. He was taken to hospital and pronounced dead on arrival. The autopsy results are pending.
A police report stated: 'The weapon used by the suspect is a CO2 .177-calibre pellet pistol and is similar to a Glock type semi-automatic handgun.'
Before the confrontation with police, the teenager is reported to have walked into a classroom and punched another boy in the nose.
Gonzalez's godmother Norma Leticia Navarro said 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?'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
So, what’s the big deal? Justified shooting.
Suicide by cop
I just purchased an H&K pellet/bb gun for plinking around and it looks very real unless you look carefully down the barrel (up close) and notice the small opening, which under any circumstance, no one is going to consider that.
Pic: 
I was under the impression that these guns were supposed to have a red or yellow or some collored tip?
Was he a threat? Or were the po-po just “doing their job” and KILLING ANYTHING that SEEMED to be some form of threat to their “AUTHORITAH”
Even IF the kid’s gun was real, what gives the PIGS the right to KILL him just because they don’t like his toy?
Jeez. Poor, dumb kid. This will lead to new mandates for pellet and BB guns to have bright orange muzzles: “Jaime’s Law.”
I wonder if he was on Ritalin or any other mind-clouding drugs that are commonly prescribed for kids?
Filming an action scene for an amateur “movie” in college years ago we had an actor run down a (not very busy) street with (my) Crosman pellet pistol in a “chase.” We hadn’t alerted the police, nor did we know anything about Film and TV permitting, and the outcome was similar.
It being a college town however - and the camera also in plain view - the University Police did not draw their weapons. They were ready to, however, and thanks to my sensible actor that pistol was ON THE GROUND and hands were UP maybe half a second into the words: “Drop Your Weapon!”
A stern warning and a paternal “talking-to” gave us a much-needed lesson on the matter.
When I was a kid, we’d pry out the orange plug. Not a good idea if you’re pointing it at a cop, but fun for playing army men around the neighborhood.
ping for later - will savor the responses to your moronic post.
You’re a moron.
Yup.
Locally a kid was killed by his brother with a bb gun. They are not colored red because they are dangerous.
The little angel came to school with a pellet gun and had just punched another boy in the nose.
Better end this way sooner than later. He was going nowhere fast anyway.
Article on the death of a child via a bb/pelet gun.
http://www.newschannel9.com/video/?videoId=1315742659&lineupId=&play=now
moronic post....Oh you live up in Canada so your are 100% irrelevant (not to mention nutz)
Drink much?
The entire time from seeing a "gun" pointed at me to realizing it was a toy took less than two seconds which was about all the time I had to decide whether to veer sharply to the left and smash into them or make my right turn. My arms were already making the correction.
Had I not been about five feet away and it wasn't broad daylight I doubt if I would have been able to process that it was a toy at all. Putting paint on a toy gun doesn't mean squat. If someone is drawing down on you as if they have a gun you have about two seconds or less to do something about it.
Drunken troll is drunk. ;^)
Don, I think you missed the part where the responding officers perceived a deadly threat.
More important perhaps, your incorporation of:
a) the black urban “po-po” moniker from the early 1990s,
b) the hard-core 1960s violent counterculture position that it is the “job” of “pigs” to kill without discriminating threat level, and
c) the “Authoritah” stereotype so prevalent in movies of the 1970s (not appropriate for Brownsville anyway)
leads me to believe you lost your mind somewhere between Kennedy and Clinton. You might want to look into that.
What are you like 9 yrs old?
Can’t fault the police on this one.
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