Posted: 1/13/2006 10:53:25 AM EDT
but it sounds like for good reason...... www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/orl-bk-school011306,0,7362155.story?coll=ny-top-headlines Deputies shoot 8th grade student on school campus Earlier reports that wound was self-inflicted are wrong, deputies say By Gary Taylor Sentinel Staff Writer
January 13, 2006, 1:48 PM EST
A nearly hour-long attempt to apprehend an armed student on the campus of Milwee Middle School near Longwood ended this morning when a member of the Seminole County Sheriff's SWAT team shot the 15-year-old boy.
The boy, whose name has not been released, was rushed by ambulance to Orlando Regional Medical Center. An armed SWAT team member rode in the ambulance him and walked alongside the stretcher, his rifle strapped across his back, as the boy was wheeled into the hospital.
The victim's condition has not been released. Just after 1 p.m., he was moved to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Women & Children, according to a Seminole County deputy at the hospital.
Sheriff Don Eslinger said the student, whom he described as "suicidal," brought a gun to school in his backpack.
But Dei-end Dilworth, who was in a reading class with the boy, said the gun was stuffed in the waistband of his pants when she saw it.
"He told another girl to tell the teacher 'I have a gun,'" and then lifted his shirt to show the handle of the handgun, she said. "He pulled it out and he cocked it."
As another student yelled, "He cocked it, he cocked it," the boy got up and turned out the classroom lights, Dei-end said. "He told everybody to sit down."
Instead, the students started running from the classroom, she said. Most ran out the front door of the room, although Dei-end and a fellow student took refuge in a teacher's planning room.
Dei-end said she heard two gunshots after the boy ran from the classroom.
"The teacher said it might not be shots," she said. "I know a gunshot."
The boy had tried to start a fight with a fellow classmate on Thursday and that may have been why he brought the gun to school, Dei-end said.
Devonte Small, a 7th-grader at the school, said he was in a disciplinary class when he saw the boy run past.
He heard "Code Red" -- calling for a lockdown of the school -- come over his teacher's two-way radio and heard that the student had a gun. At one point, he also heard someone asking for a ladder at Building 7.
The boy ran into a bathroom in that building, and deputies tried to talk to him.
"He was suicidal," Eslinger said, and while deputies attempted to establish a dialogue, he raised his gun to his neck and said he would kill himself or "die one way or another," Eslinger said. When the boy raised his weapon at one point, a deputy shot him.
Hundreds of parents converged on the school to get their children, creating a traffic nightmare. Frustrated parents ran along the sidewalk in front of the school before being directed to the parking lot of Progress Energy, north of the campus, to pick up their children.
Eddie Mandaz of Altamonte Springs said he got a call from the school. "I didn't really know what happened," he said. "That's why I'm scared."
But Devonte's mother said she was never contacted by the school and instead heard about the incident on television.
"They call me about all the petty stuff, but they didn't call me about this," said Cheryl Bratcher. "These kids have gone crazy -- 12-year-olds with guns."
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