Pellet gun costs boy his life in Texas school

Police kill 15-year-old after thinking he was holding a real weapon

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS— Police shot and killed an eighth-grader in the hallway of his school Wednesday after the boy brandished what looked like a handgun and pointed it at officers. It turned out to be a pellet gun that closely resembled the real thing.

The 15-year-old “had plenty of opportunities to lower the gun and listen to the officers’ orders, and he didn’t want to,” Interim Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez said.

Shortly before the confrontation, Jaime Gonzalez had walked into a classroom and punched a boy in the nose for no apparent reason. Police did not know why he pulled out the weapon.

“We think it looks like this was a way to bring attention to himself,” the police chief said.

Gonzalez did not threaten students or teachers, and no one else was hurt.

Authorities declined to share what Gonzalez said before he was shot in the confrontation.

“There were witnesses that saw everything,” Rodriguez said. “We are happy there were not other victims.”

The shooting happened as classes were about to begin at Cummings Middle School in Brownsville. Teachers locked classroom doors and turned off lights, and some frightened students climbed under their desks.

They could hear police charge down the hallway and shout for Gonzalez to drop the weapon, followed by several shots.

Two officers fired three shots, hitting Gonzalez at least twice, police said.

The boy’s godmother, Norma Leticia Navarro, said she couldn’t imagine why he would have brought a gun to school.

“I wish I could ask him why he did that, ‘Why did you put yourself in that position?’ ”

She said she understood that police were doing their job, but she wondered if other steps could have been taken.

“Jaime was not a bad kid,” she said. “I’m not saying he was perfect or an angel, but he was a very giving person.”

Administrators said the school would be closed Thursday.

Brownsville, on Texas’ southern tip, is beset by spillover violence from Mexico’s drug war.

As word of the shooting spread through the city, frantic parents rushed to reach their children.