Police Shoot & Kill Armed 8th-Grader In Texas School
BROWNSVILLE (CBS/AP) - Police shot and killed an armed 15-year-old student Wednesday at a Texas junior high school.
Brownsville police Detective J.J. Trevino says police received a call around 8 a.m. claiming there was an individual with a weapon at Cummings Junior High School. Police say they found the student with a handgun in a hallway.
According to CBS affiliate KENS, police say officers shot the student after he pointed a gun at them.
"The individual confronted the officers, at which time they had to shoot him," Trevino said.
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.
The school, with an enrollment of about 750 students, was placed on lockdown when administrators called police and no one else was injured, Brown said.
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.
The lockdown was lifted about two hours after the shooting, but the students and employees were relocated while officers investigated at the school, Brown said.
The street in front of Cummings was lined with police cars and blocked off. Dozens of frustrated parents and relatives flooded out of of an area park pavilion without their children after school officials announced that all remaining children had been bused to a high school and could be picked up there.
Detective Trevino said investigators hadn't determined whether the student fired any shots, and he said officers had no information on why the student might have had a gun.
"It's still under investigation, as far as how he came about to bringing the weapon or if he encountered anybody or anything else," Trevino said.
The dead student was an 8th-grader at the school.
Brownsville is on the southern tip of Texas, about 540 miles from Dallas.
