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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPolice kill armed eighth-grader in Texas school
BROWNSVILLE, Texas Police shot and killed an armed eighth-grader who "engaged" officers in the main hallway of his middle school on Wednesday, the South Texas school district said.
Brownsville school district officials said administrators immediately called police after the student brandished a weapon about 8 a.m., shortly after classes started at Cummings Middle School. When police arrived, the student "engaged" the officers and was shot, district spokeswoman Drue Brown said in an emailed statement.
Cameron County Justice of the Peace Kip V. Johnson Hodge pronounced the student dead at a hospital and has ordered an autopsy, said court coordinator Israel Tapia.
A seventh grade student who said he was two classrooms from where the shooting took place said the school was already on lockdown when he heard three shots. Miguel Grimaldo, 12, said students later followed police out of the building and boarded buses that took them to a neighboring park, where his mother picked him up late Wednesday morning.
http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20120104/US.Texas.Student.Shot/
Too sad. He was a child with access to things he should have never had access to.
kwolf68
(7,365 posts)But it's already illegal for the kid to posses a gun on school property. He wasn't worried about any laws anyway. People have access to guns all over, but don't go shooting up high schools. Not sure what this kid's motives were and if he was going to go on a rampage, but this story is a hell of a lot better than a "20 die in school shooting" story.
Burgman
(330 posts)needed to kill him too?
Initech
(100,080 posts)I don't care if someone owns a gun but I don't support gun makers, lobbyists or the NRA. People take the 2nd amendment way too seriously.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)That if there were just more guns available, this could have been averted, because more violence is always the way to resolve violent conflicts. Q to the E to the blood-soaked D, people.
comipinko
(541 posts)they could have taken care of this without the need to involve the police who are busy making traffic stops.
sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)I guess you don't know the Brownsville police department. They don't make traffic stops, they sit on the side of the road playing Angry Birds and texting each other.
They were almost as bad down there as the Staties "patroling" the highways up here in central Connecticut.
comipinko
(541 posts)demosincebirth
(12,540 posts)spin
(17,493 posts)should be allow to carry firearms. And I know a LOT of gun owners.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)malaise
(269,049 posts)What a waste of a young life
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)And since kids are not allowed to have guns at school, we already have laws dealing with the issue (but there are these people, we call em law breakers, who don't care what you or I think or what laws we pass).
Millions own guns, few use them to harm others. But just like with Islam and the RW folks whip up fear of the many based on the few.
Didn't like it after 9/11, don't like it when folks trot out the same things after someone does a crime with a gun either.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)I don't think we will ever know if the kid was actually shooting at the police or not. I don't like that they put "engaged" in quotes. That term usually means that someone was firing a weapon the quotes suggest a weapon was sort of fired or not fired or might have been fired or something not sure what the intention of the quotes was, especially since the official word specifically says that they aren't saying or they don't know if the kid fired the weapon.
So, the only thing we know is that this kid had a gun, he was in the hallway, presumably just him and the police so there was little danger he would have killed another child at this point. He most likely ignored orders to put the gun down, he might have fired shots or a shot and then he was killed.
I am glad he didn't kill anyone. I hope that the police did everything they could to avoid killing him, but based on police conduct I have seen first hand, I can't be sure this is the case.
getdown
(525 posts)maybe there should be, so enforcement uses every option before killing children in their schools