newjerseynewsroom.com

BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Parents of the eighth-grade boy shot and killed by Brownsville police want to know why so much force was used on their son.

15-year-old Jaime Gonzalez Jr. was shot and killed Wednesday after he pointed a pellet gun at officers and refused to drop it.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Brownsville Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez said that when Gonzalez pointed his gun at the officers, they were going to shoot back. The boy’s gun was actually a CO2-powered .177-caliber pellet pistol that looked like a Glock semiautomatic, according to police.

Jaime Gonzalez Sr. questioned the need for the police to fire three shots at his son, saying, “Why not one that would bring him down?”

Thomas Aveni, an expert on police use of force, said, “If the officer believes life is in imminent danger, it doesn't matter how old is the person who has the gun,” according to the Chronicle.

According to an Associated Press report on startribune.com, Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez said Gonzalez “had plenty of opportunities to lower the gun and listen to the officers' orders, and he didn't want to."

The 911 call from Cummings Middle School Assistant Principal Elizabeth Brito-Hatcher to a male police dispatcher lasted about six minutes. About 30 officers, investigators and emergency medical service personnel went to the school.

The Brownsville Herald reported that preliminary autopsy showed the cause of death coming from a gunshot wound to the chest, and another in the abdomen.

Gonzalez’s family initially reported that the boy had suffered a gunshot wound to the head, and police scanner communications at the time indicated that police believed that also.

Two dozen of the boy’s friends gathered outside the family's home Wednesday night.