ORLANDO, Fla. – Christopher Penley, the 15-year-old student shot by a deputy after brandishing a pellet gun in class, will die of his injuries and his organs will be harvested for transplant.
Chris had been on life support since his arrival at Orlando Regional Medical Center on Friday with a gunshot wound to the head, said Longwood, Fla., attorney Mark Nation, who represents the family.
Once tests determined that Chris was brain dead, his parents began the process of donating his organs. If their son was going to die, Nation said, they wanted to give others a chance to live.
“It was critical to the family that something positive come out of this tragedy,” Nation said. “They kept him alive for that sole purpose.”
Nation said Ralph Penley of Winter Springs, Fla., was at his son’s side Saturday while hospital officials made phone calls to line up recipients for his organs. The lawyer described the boy as “clinically brain dead.”
Chris was shot Friday morning after being chased around Milwee Middle School near Longwood and then being cornered in a washroom. Sheriff’s Lt. Mike Weippert fired once at the boy when he pointed a gun at him.
It turned out that the gun was a carbon-dioxide-powered pellet gun that had been modified to look like a real 9 mm handgun, authorities said. Pellet guns normally have red or pink barrels, but the barrel on Chris’ gun had been painted black.
It would have been difficult to tell it was a pellet gun under any circumstance, but Weippert had to make a split-second decision when Chris pointed the gun at him, Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger said. At the time, Eslinger said, Weippert was positioned between the boy and two occupied classrooms.
Little information had been available on the boy’s condition before Saturday evening. Ralph Penley and his family instructed the hospital to make no announcements.
Before Nation stepped forward on behalf of the parents, several news organizations reported erroneously Saturday that Chris had died.
“He’s an emotional wreck,” Nation said of the boy’s father. “He hasn’t slept. He’s just devastated.”
According to the lawyer, Penley insists that he told deputy sheriffs – before the shooting occurred – that his son did not have a real gun and that if he was armed it was with a pellet gun.
Eslinger said Penley was not called until after his son was shot, however. Even then, he was told only to come to the school and not informed of the shooting, he said.
“It’s a total misunderstanding,” Eslinger said of Penley’s comments.
Nation said he would seek records for his client’s cell phone, as well as copies of 911 tapes and sheriff’s office radio transmissions.
“I’m not pointing my finger at anyone,” Nation said. “We all have a lot of (investigative) work to do.”
The incident began when Chris told a fellow student to “tell the teacher I have a gun,” one classmate said. He lifted his shirt to prove it, she said, and then pulled the weapon out of his waistband and cocked it.
Chris then ordered the students to sit down, but most ran from the room while the teacher telephoned the front office. Deputy Matt Parker, Milwee’s school resource officer, started chasing Chris and radioed for help. More than 40 officers from several departments, including the Sheriff’s SWAT team, responded to the school.
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The shooting is under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Three critical-incident teams responded to the school because of the large number of people who needed to be interviewed, said Joyce Dawley, special agent in charge of FDLE’s Orlando office.
Within six hours of the shooting, the teams had interviewed 25 people and still had another 10 to 12 to question before making a preliminary report to the sheriff’s office on Tuesday, Dawley said.
The FDLE’s final report will go to the Seminole-Brevard State Attorney’s Office, which will decide if any charges are to be filed.
School officials shut down Milwee after the shooting and sent the 1,100 students home for a long weekend. Principal Lois Chavis declined to comment Saturday.
Seminole County School Superintendent Bill Vogel said that crisis counselors would be on hand Tuesday to work with students who were in the class where Chris brandished his weapon.
“In a situation like this, we try to get back to as normal an environment as possible for students,” he said.
School officials had not decided whether there would be a memorial service for the student.
The school district also expects to meet with FDLE Tuesday, Vogel said. He declined to name the teacher who had Chris in class Friday, saying he wanted to “be sensitive to FDLE’s investigation.”
Vogel said parents should not be afraid to send their children to school, despite Friday’s incident.
“The manner in which the event was handled should give parents confidence that their children are safe,” he said.
Meanwhile, Weippert is on restricted duty away from the public, a routine procedure when an officer is involved in a shooting.
He had worked for the sheriff’s office for 20 years and has served on its SWAT team for more than 16 years.
In October 1996 he was ambushed in a wooded area northwest of State Road 434 and Interstate 4 after chasing a man seen breaking into a car in a motel parking lot. Weippert required 200 stitches to close cuts to his face.
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(Orlando Sentinel correspondents Tania DeLuzuriaga and Bobby Coker contributed to this report.)
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(c) 2006, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).
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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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PHOTOS (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): TEENSHOT
AP-NY-01-14-06 2138EST
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