IN THE AFTERMATH OF BPD'S TRAGIC SHOOTING OF TEEN...QUESTIONS ON SPIN CONTROL

 "Jaime's tragic life came to an end because he didn't stop to think of the possible consequences of his actions. For that he paid the ultimate price. The two police officers involved must now live with the fact that they shot a teenager who was not carrying a lethal weapon. That might be an even harder cross for them to bear.But the lying and deception (even if it was by omission) exercised by the BPD and the BISD is unforgivable."...

By Juan Montoya

It would serve no purpose to sit here and second-guess the actions of the two officers who shot and killed 15-year-old Jaime Gonzalez in the hallways of Cumming Middle School.

As several commenters have posted, in a situation where a perp (to use their terms) refuses to lower or drop his weapon, there is no time to determine whether the gun he is holding is a real one or, as in this case, a pellet gun that at most could inflict the equivalent of a wasp sting on the body.

Still, there are some bothersome aspects to this whole episode that makes many of us uncomfortable. Gonzalez was shot three times. One of those shots was to the back of the head.

Officers, according to media accounts, were using assault weapons to confront the youth. To aim the weapon accurately, one has to take careful aim before pulling the trigger. The assumption then becomes that the shot to the back of the head was taken deliberately, or as Gonzalez turned away from the officers.

An investigation is underway by the Texas Rangers to determine the sequence of events that led to the youth's tragic death. Earlier statements by police that the BPD would investigate its own were, of course, unacceptable.

And as more details emerge about the youth, we know life did not hand him a good hand. He lived with his father and stepmother. What was not said was that his biological mother had been caught in an indiscretion with another woman and her mate had her deported.
Be that as it may, as was written at the top of the post, we cannot second-guess the police. What if they had reasoned that he was just a 15-year-old and not shot him in the hallway? Then, what if he had walked into a classroom and shot a teacher or student? The criticism would have been that they should have shot him to prevent the shooting of the victims.
Without having a firm timeline of the events leading up to the shooting, let's just say that the minute after the cops shot the teen (8:20, 8:30?) they knew that the handgun was really a pellet gun and not a lethal weapon. Yet, from that moment on, their press releases (and those issued by the Brownsville Independent School District based information provided by police) omitted the crucial fact that the "weapon" was a pellet gun.
They issued  a press release after the incident only saying that the officers had shot and killed a student "armed with a handgun."
The BISD also reported the same thing. And here begins the spin that was applied while the PD and BISD administrators bought time to justify their actions.

Each new interview with the BPD reported by the media (AP, SAn Antonio Express-News, ABC, CBS, evne the Huffington Post) neglected to mention the fact already known to the BPD, that the student was carrying a pellet gun. It wasn't until late in the afternoon during the press conference with the local media that it was divulged that the student's weapon was not considered a lethal arm.

But from the start, the BPD administrators sought cover from this fact. Witness the events when they called the boy's stepmother to the station and she reported to the local daily that officers there wanted her to sign a statement "clearing the officers involved of any charges." She hadn't even been told that her son had been shot, much less killed. In fact, she wasn't even told that he had been shot in the back of the head.
Although three shots had been fired, preliminary autopsy results released on Thursday show that Gonzalez died from two gunshot wounds. One gunshot wound was in his chest while the other was in his abdomen.
According to the autopsy, a wound to the back of his head was from when Gonzalez fell.
Was this an execution?

As more and more media called the BPD, the language that emerged from them and the BISD is intriguing. Gonzalez just didn't carry a gun that a teacher reported seeing under his clothing. He "brandished" it. He just didn't point  a gun at the officers, he "engaged" them. Now, just how do you engage officers armed with assault weapons with a pellet gun?

Interim Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez said the teen was pointing the weapon at officers and "had plenty of opportunities to lower the gun and listen to the officers' orders, and he didn't want to."

This is at odds with news accounts that indicate students in a classrrom next to the hallway where Gonzalez was shot say they only heard the officers yell "Drop the gun" once before they heard the three shots fired.

Language is a manipulative thing when someone wants to deceive, isn't it?

Media questions about whether the teen had shot at anyone were left hanging, even though the police and BISD spokespersons knew that there was no way he could have "shot anyone" with a pellet gun. This omission, too, reeks of cover up.

As the coverage progressed, we now learn from these same sources that he had "assaulted" someone with his fist, that he had told other students that he "would not be taken down" by the police, and that he had "threatened" other students.

The demonizing of Jaime Gonzalez was allowed to take place to buttress the answers to the inevitable questions that would come later after it was divulged that the most damage he could have done to anyone with a pellet gun was maybe take out someone's eye. But kill? That's a big, big, stretch for anyone to swallow.

Jaime's tragic life came to an end because he didn't stop to think of the possible consequences of his actions. For that he paid the ultimate price. The two police officers involved must now live with the fact that they shot a teenager who was not carrying a lethal weapon. That might be an even harder cross for them to bear.

But the lying and deception (even if it was by omission) exercised by the BPD and the BISD is unforgivable.

Media sources diffused the news of the teen's shooting far and wide around the entire world before they learned that the teen was carrying a pellet gun. It doesn't matter that the misinformation only lasted for five or six hours after the incident. Then, when the truth of the matter was disclosed, another fresh round of coverage highlighting the tragedy that occurred thrust this community back under the national glare.
Now the latest tidbit from the cop shop is that there have been death threats at the cops who pulled the trigger. Come off it, already. And please don't add insult to injury by awarding the police officers proclamations of gratitude at City Hall for their role in this tragic event.

The Cummings Middle School community (as has all of Brownsville and the Rio Grande Valley) has been traumatized by the tragic death of a 15-year-old. That trauma was aggravated by the deception of the police and school district authorities as they sought to buy time to prepare a story line to justify their actions.