More Information is trickling out
I got this from another forum. The poster didn't include a link, but it gives us a better perspective of what went down, it appears to be a newspaper columnist eating a little crow pie:
Jeff
I got this from another forum. The poster didn't include a link, but it gives us a better perspective of what went down, it appears to be a newspaper columnist eating a little crow pie:
Mike Thomas/Orlando Sentinel
Did Milwee Middle School student Chris Penley have to die?
There now is much more information to answer that question than when I asked it yesterday.
After being walked through the incident by Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger, I believe the answer is yes.
After Chris pulled out his gun and fled his classroom Friday, he did not run around the campus for 40 minutes, as was originally reported.
He was out for only six minutes before running into a bathroom.
During that time outside, he encountered a teacher who pleaded with the boy not to shoot him. Chris said nothing. His face was blank.
Chris was in the bathroom for about 40 minutes. Sgt. Kevin Brubaker, an experienced negotiator, tried to talk him out. But the boy would not respond,
other than to once say "Chris" when asked his name.
This is in line with a profile we wrote on Chris in Saturday's newspaper. A friend said, "You can poke him with a stick, and he won't talk."
The bathroom had an open alcove facing classrooms that were 85 feet away. One of the classrooms may have been evacuated. The other could not be cleared because the door faced the bathroom alcove.
That classroom had glass windows that could have been in the line of fire in any exchange of gunshots that took place from the bathroom.
Chris came out into the alcove, holding the gun in one hand, with the butt of the weapon resting in the palm of the other hand, as if to steady it.
In a motion police call "cutting the pie," he leveled it directly at SWAT team member Lt. Mike Weippert.
There was an officer stationed nearby with a beanbag gun, used to stun suspects.
But the threat was too imminent and Weippert shot Chris in the head, just as it
seemed Chris wanted him to do.
If someone pointed a gun at you like that, would you aim for his shoulder or his
leg, as many readers have suggested? If your kid were in that classroom across
from the alcove, what would you have advised Weippert to do?
This brings me to Weippert.
I wrote yesterday that he had not been involved in a prior shooting. He was.
On April 8, 2001, Weippert and several Orange and Seminole deputies confronted a
man named Alexis Gonzalez, who had been fleeing in a truck after a drug deal.
Gonzalez got out of his truck when it hit traffic and threatened to commit
suicide. Weippert and another deputy shot him several times with a beanbag gun.
The man still was able to raise his gun and fire at deputies.
At least six of them returned fire, peppering Gonzalez's truck with 42 holes. In
the melee, Weippert only fired one round. He ordered a cease-fire and approached
the truck. Amazingly, Gonzalez was only wounded. He ignored Weippert's warning
to put his hands up and instead raised his weapon toward him.
Weippert shot him in the head.
In 1996, Weippert received a commendation for disarming and apprehending a
suicidal man.
That same year, he was almost killed when a suspect slashed him so badly he
required 200 stitches in his face and 100 in his side.
This is not a rogue cop.
But he also is not one who hesitates to act when he has no choice. It appears
Chris Penley gave him no choice.
Jeff
