Teacher Accused of Making Bomb Threats to be Tried by June 21:
Michelle Dohm, the Thurmont Middle School teacher in Maryland who is accused of threatening and stalking some of her students, will have her trial begin by June 21st under Maryland’s speedy trial law.
That’s speedy?
Jourdain sentenced in Red Lake shooting:
Just some more information on the sentencing of alleged Red Lake co-conspirator Louis Jourdain in addition to the previously posted sentence…
The teenager will be on probation until he is 21, and during that period, a federal judge will have discretion to send him to other facilities as a condition of probation, the paper reported.
Jourdain pleaded guilty to making threatening interstate communications.
Some Question Whether Deputy Was Justified In Shooting:
Some people have been leaving comments on my site asking if lethal force was justified in the police shooting of Christopher Penley. Maybe this article will answer some of those questions…
Mike Weippert received the Purple Heart after he was stabbed in the line of duty and needed more than 200 stitches on his face. Ten years later, Weippert is again being attacked, this time for his use of lethal force on a 15-year-old student.
“Twenty years on sheriff’s office, 17 years on SWAT. It’s a difficult situation for a lot of people,” said Sheriff Don Eslinger.
The decorated SWAT member, who volunteered to talk with elementary and middle schools, isn’t talking. But others are wondering out loud, why not a Taser instead of a gun?
“I understand the distance wasn’t conducive to the utilization of a Taser and, plus, when I guess a firearm is pointed, a Taser is not necessarily the most appropriate means to deal with that,” Sheriff Eslinger said.
Now I’m not a cop, but think about it. Christopher Penley brandished an authentic looking gun. Before the standoff with police, he had held another student hostage. Then when confronted by police, he held the gun to his own head then raised it at the police like he was going to fire.
The police had no way of knowing if the gun was real or not even if Christopher Penley’s father did get word to them. His dad can say it’s a fake, but there’s no real way of knowing until the weapon is in police hands. And even if the distance was conducive to using a taser, if an officer used a taser on an armed subject, there’s no way to guarantee the suspect wouldn’t pull the trigger firing wildly.
It was an unfortunate and tragic incident, but I think the police did the best job they could.
In my blogging about Christopher Penley, the 8th grader from Florida who was shot by police while brandishing a pellet gun, I left out an important item. Christopher Penley’s father, Ralph Penley, tried to warn police that the gun his son was carrying was fake…
Eslinger said Friday it wasn’t until after the incident that authorities realized the weapon was only a pellet gun. But Nation said Saturday Ralph Penley told authorities it wasn’t a real gun on a cell phone as he rushed to the school after hearing of the incident. Nation said police wouldn’t let Ralph Penley inside when he arrived.
“If Christopher was alive and (Ralph Penley) was able to go into the school, he would’ve been able to talk him out of it,” Nation said. “He did everything he could to avoid this situation.”
However, Nation said he didn’t know the precise timeline of events, including whether Christopher had died before Ralph Penley arrived. He said he’d be investigating the incident further.
Seminole County Sheriff’s Lt. Dennis Lemma said Sunday the department had no immediate comment on Nation’s statement.
However, the Orlando Sentinel reported Sunday that Eslinger said Ralph Penley wasn’t told of the events until after his son was shot.
“It’s a total misunderstanding,” Eslinger told the newspaper.
Families criticize teen’s penalty:
Louis Jourdain’s sentence hasn’t been made officially public, but according to the article, he will spend less than one year in a private treatment center for children. Jourdain pleaded guilty to making threatening interstate communications in connection with the Red Lake shootings. And the families of the victims are none too happy about it…
“It doesn’t seem like enough,” said Rose Rosebear, whose 15-year-old granddaughter Chanelle Rosebear was among those killed. “He got the easy way out, I guess.”
Adding to the frustration, though, is that many in the community do not know Louis Jourdain’s actual role — if any — in the events leading up to the March 21 shootings. And they may never know.
Jourdain’s juvenile status in the proceedings means court records are sealed.
Victims’ families say they are frustrated. They are left to speculate about whether Jourdain, who was Weise’s cousin and rumored to have exchanged e-mails and text messages with him regularly, thought Weise might kill his grandfather and take his gun to wreak havoc in the halls of Red Lake High.
One of the bullets Weise fired struck then-freshman Cody Thunder in the hip. Cody survived but has not gone back to school. A bullet remains lodged somewhere in the teen’s body, says his grandfather, Al Thunder. The lack of detail about Jourdain’s trial and involvement, he said, grates on him.
“We’re the people that got hurt. Not him,” Al Thunder said. “Now, it seems like he’s the one getting the best deal.”
Francis “Chunky” Brun still chokes up when he talks about his 28-year-old son, Derrick. Derrick Brun worked as a security guard at the school and was the first person Weise encountered when he stormed the school. Brun, who was lauded for trying to stop Weise, was shot to death.
Seeing justice done helps ease the minds of those who’ve lost a loved one, Francis Brun said. But there are many who suspect the penalty doled out to Louis Jourdain does not fit whatever role the teen might have played, he said.
“I can’t prejudge the boy,” he said. “I know he’s going to have to live with this thing, and it’s going to haunt him the rest of his life, just like it’s caused so much grief and sorrow for my family and all family members of people who were killed.”
Student carrying pellet gun shot by cops declared dead:
Christopher Penley, of Winter Springs, was officially pronounced dead at 4:57 a.m. Sunday, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement posted on their Web site.
Penley had been brain dead since about 10:30 a.m. Saturday morning, but was kept alive so his organs could be harvested, said Mark Nation, a lawyer for Penley’s parents.
Student Shot By Deputies Clinically Brain Dead:
The 15-year-old boy shot by police while brandishing a pellet gun in his middle school was clinically brain dead Saturday but was being kept alive to harvest his organs, his family’s attorney said.
Christopher Penley was expected to die Saturday night or Sunday, family attorney Mark Nation said.
A little more on the motive behind Christopher Penley’s actions…
Friends also said Penley was suicidal – unhappy and bullied by several kids at school. He had run away from home several times, Kelly Swofford said.
“He said he had something planned,” her 11-year-old son Jeffery Swofford said.
Jeffery said Penley told him at breakfast Friday morning, “I hope I die today because I don’t really like my life.”
My thoughts and prayers are with the Penley family at this time.
8th grade student had pellet gun, on Advanced Life Support:
It turns out that the eighth-grade student that was shot by Florida law enforcement for brandishing a firearm at them was using a pellet gun…
“He was suicidal,” Eslinger said Friday morning, and while deputies attempted to establish a dialog, he raised his gun to his neck and said he would kill himself or “die one way or another,” Eslinger said. When the boy raised the pellet gun at one point, a deputy shot him, apparently unaware it wasn’t a real gun.
Now the kid is on Advanced Life Support and might die. I hope you kids remember this if you ever think about bringing a gun, real or otherwise, to school.
Red Lake Teen Sentenced for Threats:
A tribal chairman’s teenage son, once accused of conspiring with a 16-year-old friend who killed nine people on the Red Lake Indian Reservation, was sentenced behind closed doors Friday on a lesser charge of sending threatening messages.
The sentence for Louis Jourdain, 17, wasn’t revealed, and his father, Floyd Jourdain Jr., said he would not disclose it.
“The judge’s ruling will reflect what I’ve said all along … my son is a good kid,” the elder Jourdain said.
Attorneys left the court without commenting.
I’ll let you know if the sentence itself ever becomes known.
An eighth grader from Milwee Middle School near Longwood, Florida was shot by local law enforcement during a standoff at the school.
Investigators said students at Milwee Middle School on 1341 South Ronald Regan Blvd., near Longwood, Fla., noticed a Beretta gun in a backpack of a student at about 9:30 a.m. Friday.
The two students confronted the boy and a fight broke out, officers said. The two students then told a resource officer.
When the officer confronted the boy about the gun, he fled and was eventually cornered near a bathroom on campus.
“During the situation the student said he was going to kill himself or die, one way or another,” Seminole County Don Eslinger said. “Deputies attempted to establish dialog. He raised a firearm and lethal force was used by the sheriff’s office.”
The student was transported to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. Several reports indicated that the boy had died from his injuries but those reports were not confirmed.
According to this article, the student pulled the gun in class and held another student hostage.