Lawyer: Authorities were told student's gun was fake

CNN ^ | 1/14/06 | CNN

[wagglebee]

LONGWOOD, Florida (CNN) -- The father and brother of a teenager shot at school Friday while brandishing a pellet gun told authorities before an officer opened fire that Christopher Penley's gun was not real, the family's attorney said Saturday.

The eighth-grader is clinically brain dead and being kept on life support to harvest his organs, attorney Mark Nation said.

When Ralph Penley arrived at the school Friday to help police and school officials defuse the situation, he wasn't allowed inside, Nation said.

Nation said Ralph Penley was "angry" because he had spoken to police before he arrived at the school and told them Christopher did not have a real gun. Christopher's younger brother told school officials the same thing, Nation said.

[DakotaRed]

I'd bet money he is the most devatsated of all. They do tend to Monday morning quarterback themselves after an incident like this.

Before you so easily condemn, go and be in the same or a similar situation yourself. Maybe you will see what is actually involved.

[Horatio Gates]

Police Officers are like sheepdogs

Geez...don't let my wife see that. She's been trying to get me "fixed" for the last few months

[August West]

Wrong on both counts:
1.) It was a guy.
2.) He was pointing a (very real) gun.

Furthermore, the cop is a hero.

[Oztrich Boy]

Now, the only reason I can think of for a police officer to aim a weapon at someone is a reasonable belief that the target's behavior poses an imminent danger to life and limb.

Or the cop just feels like waving his ...,
(Goose Creek High)

[frankjr]

If it was my kid I would have gone anyway. I would not have given the cops a chance to shoot my kid.

[Chanticleer]

According to the Sheriff, his son was already dead when the father arrived.

[Chanticleer]

Excuse me, shot, not yet dead, when the father arrived.

[Right Wing Assault]

There was, apparently, some debris in the barrel.

My brother had a starter's pistol with a plugged barrel and an exhaust port on the top. A friend and I (10-year-olds) got hold of it, put a screw in the port, and shot out our attic light bulb from 30 feet on the first shot. We were a bit surprised how fast it came out.

Actually just the gas from a blank can cause major trauma up close. Like death.

[Hotdog]

"Do what I do, protect yourself. If you ever have to depend on the police to save your life, you are probably as good as dead. And that's just the way it is. Read the newspapers and watch the news and see how many people get killed all the time.'


As a former police officer I can say your wrong...I was going to go into detail of some of the things I did but your stuck on stupid and I don't speak that language. Say what you want...but I'm moving on...thats just the way it is...

[Battle Axe]

It was Jon-Erik Hexum that I was thinking of. I don't think that a projectile ever entered his body. I think he died of percussion due to the shell being exploded too near his ear.

[pillut48]

For graphic description of Jon-Erik Hexum's autopsy:
http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/h/Jon%20Eric%20Hexum/jon_erik_hexum.htm

[Candor7]

Police Officers are like sheepdogs "Geez...don't let my wife see that. She's been trying to get me "fixed" for the last few months"

Sorry, poetic license!

[N. Beaujon]

Battle, I'd never even heard of that story.
" At around 5:15 p.m. he put the pistol (according to witnesses, it was loaded with three empty cartridges and two blanks) up to his right temple. As he pulled the trigger he smiled, and supposedly said, "Let's see if I got myself with this one." He was apparently unaware that at close range, a blank can cause great damage. And damage it was. The explosion drove a quarter-sized piece of his skull far into his brain. Turns out that the blank was packed with paper inside, and it went straight into his temple and made a bone chip lodge in his brain. Killed by paper."

Point well, and tragically, amplified. So, if anyone points a gun at me, I don't think I'll wait for the forensic analysis or the nut case's parents to assure me it wasn't real. As if that means it cant maim or kill you.

Armchair quarterbacks. Gotta love them. Not.

[GladesGuru]

One of the most basic elements of gun control is "never point a gun at anything, much less anyone, you don't intend to shoot".

Gun ownership is the second most important aspect of being an American, according to George Washington. His address to the 1 st meeting of Congress - "Firearms are second in importance only to the Constitution." leaves no room for debate.

He also addressed the issue of "safe and sane hands holding those guns" in that same address.

To threaten someone with a gun is to trivialize the fundamental importance of gun ownership, the value of another citizen's life and/or property, and marks one as unfit to regulate one's own actions so as to not unduly threaten the freedoms of one's fellow citizens.

The youth was violating other people's rights and freedoms, and whiners about this death are, by definition, either unaware of the issues or simply hand wringing Libroids*.

I was the product of a Jewish family, hardly a pro-gun background. Nor are Jews known for being corporeal punishment advocates. Yet I knew as a wee tot that touching my father's pistol would mean no night light would be needed in my room that night because my glowing bottom would provide illumination the first time I touched that pistol.

Authority without responsibility is reality only to the two year old mind. Guns are essential to the American, for as Washington also said in the same address "When firearms go, All goes, we need them with us always".

As we need to be always armed, so also must we carry firearms responsibly.

The youth assumed authority which he was unable to responsibly manage. In so doing, he endangered the Unalienable Rights of others. The officer was correct in his actions.
* Libroid, a Liberal whose intrusive Liberal behavior and/or beliefs renders them a pain in the a** to others.

[KenmcG414]

Real or not if the punk pointed the gun at the cop, the cop was justified in shooting him,'nuff said.

[Wicket]

Oh please.

The kid was apparently holding another kid hostage. He had painted the gun to look like a real one. He pointed it at the deputy.

Clearly a pretty screwed up kid. Suicide by cop, if there ever was one. Sad, but not the cops' fault.