Daytona Beach News: Society sinks second chances
Post
January 19, 2006
Society sinks second chances - PAMELA HASTEROK
Did they have to kill him?
Did sheriffs deputies who responded to Milwee Middle School in Longwood last week have to shoot to death a 15-year-old suicidal boy wielding a pellet gun?
The simple answer is yes.
Once Christopher Penley emerged from the school bathroom and leveled his 9mm handgun lookalike at a SWAT officer, his life was over. You can't expect a police officer not to shoot when a gun is pointed at him. You can't expect him to know it was a fake gun, either, because it lacked the markings that would have identified it.
But what about before then?
Christopher waved the gun around in class as though it was a real weapon, prompting his teacher to call the on-campus sheriff. Six minutes later, deputies cornered the boy in an empty bathroom and began evacuating the school, although some children remained in a nearby classroom. In the next 40 minutes, 40 law enforcement officers arrived, including the SWAT team. Christopher never shot anyone. Yet they killed him.
One has to ask: In that 40 minutes, could someone have saved this troubled boy's life?
Steve Olson of the Seminole County Sheriff's Office didn't have much in the way of answers.
Could officers have used tear gas to incapacitate Chris? Olson's not sure they had any with them.
Could they have used a Taser or bean bag shot to stun him? Officers were armed with it, but the situation was too volatile to use it.
Did the deputy have to shoot to kill, rather than disable, the boy? Maybe. The state is investigating.
Finally, could they have barricaded the bathroom and waited him out?
"I'm not saying no. I'm not saying there weren't things that could have been done differently," Olson said.
It's hard to see how Chris was of any danger to anyone but himself in that bathroom. It's hard to understand how 40 officers could not subdue one 15-year-old boy in 40 minutes.
I'm not the only one wondering. Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger has earned a reputation for training his officers to recognize and deal with mentally disturbed people. Regardless if his office is cleared of wrongdoing by the state, he's conducting his own investigation into whether deputies could have averted the tragedy. That's some solace.
But maybe Eslinger's deputies are merely reflecting what our society has become -- a country on constant alert for terrorists and deranged gunmen, a world where anyone is a threat, no matter how young or how ill.
Seniors and children alike have pointed guns at cops, so cops make no distinction for the frail or small when they point their own guns. The mentally ill are as capable of pulling a trigger as the sane, so police discard alternatives.
"The options disappear when someone is pointing a gun at you," said Chuck Habermehl, head of training for the Volusia County Sheriff's Office.
We've become a hair-trigger society. Remember Rigoberto Alpizar, the mentally ill man who ran out of a plane at Miami International Airport claiming he had a bomb, his wife running after him saying he was off his medication? Federal marshals killed him.
Remember the London man police mistook for a terrorist and chased through the subway? When he tripped, they killed him.
Remember Delray Beach 16-year-old Jarrod Miller who drove his car down a breezeway at a school dance? Police shot him in the back of the head.
If they'll use Tasers to subdue a 6-year-old disrupting his first-grade class, as they did in Miami, we shouldn't be shocked that they'll use bullets on a teenager.
We've become a society with no room for error. No one gets a second chance any more.
Not even a suicidal middle schooler with a pellet gun.
pamela.hasterok@news-jrnl.com
Society sinks second chances - PAMELA HASTEROK
Did they have to kill him?
Did sheriffs deputies who responded to Milwee Middle School in Longwood last week have to shoot to death a 15-year-old suicidal boy wielding a pellet gun?
The simple answer is yes.
Once Christopher Penley emerged from the school bathroom and leveled his 9mm handgun lookalike at a SWAT officer, his life was over. You can't expect a police officer not to shoot when a gun is pointed at him. You can't expect him to know it was a fake gun, either, because it lacked the markings that would have identified it.
But what about before then?
Christopher waved the gun around in class as though it was a real weapon, prompting his teacher to call the on-campus sheriff. Six minutes later, deputies cornered the boy in an empty bathroom and began evacuating the school, although some children remained in a nearby classroom. In the next 40 minutes, 40 law enforcement officers arrived, including the SWAT team. Christopher never shot anyone. Yet they killed him.
One has to ask: In that 40 minutes, could someone have saved this troubled boy's life?
Steve Olson of the Seminole County Sheriff's Office didn't have much in the way of answers.
Could officers have used tear gas to incapacitate Chris? Olson's not sure they had any with them.
Could they have used a Taser or bean bag shot to stun him? Officers were armed with it, but the situation was too volatile to use it.
Did the deputy have to shoot to kill, rather than disable, the boy? Maybe. The state is investigating.
Finally, could they have barricaded the bathroom and waited him out?
"I'm not saying no. I'm not saying there weren't things that could have been done differently," Olson said.
It's hard to see how Chris was of any danger to anyone but himself in that bathroom. It's hard to understand how 40 officers could not subdue one 15-year-old boy in 40 minutes.
I'm not the only one wondering. Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger has earned a reputation for training his officers to recognize and deal with mentally disturbed people. Regardless if his office is cleared of wrongdoing by the state, he's conducting his own investigation into whether deputies could have averted the tragedy. That's some solace.
But maybe Eslinger's deputies are merely reflecting what our society has become -- a country on constant alert for terrorists and deranged gunmen, a world where anyone is a threat, no matter how young or how ill.
Seniors and children alike have pointed guns at cops, so cops make no distinction for the frail or small when they point their own guns. The mentally ill are as capable of pulling a trigger as the sane, so police discard alternatives.
"The options disappear when someone is pointing a gun at you," said Chuck Habermehl, head of training for the Volusia County Sheriff's Office.
We've become a hair-trigger society. Remember Rigoberto Alpizar, the mentally ill man who ran out of a plane at Miami International Airport claiming he had a bomb, his wife running after him saying he was off his medication? Federal marshals killed him.
Remember the London man police mistook for a terrorist and chased through the subway? When he tripped, they killed him.
Remember Delray Beach 16-year-old Jarrod Miller who drove his car down a breezeway at a school dance? Police shot him in the back of the head.
If they'll use Tasers to subdue a 6-year-old disrupting his first-grade class, as they did in Miami, we shouldn't be shocked that they'll use bullets on a teenager.
We've become a society with no room for error. No one gets a second chance any more.
Not even a suicidal middle schooler with a pellet gun.
pamela.hasterok@news-jrnl.com
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