Utah boy brings gun to school, cites Newtown fears

PAUL FOY

— Dec. 18 7:50 PM EST

 

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah sixth-grader caught with a gun at school told administrators he brought the weapon to defend himself in case of an attack similar to last week's mass shooting at a Connecticut school, officials said Tuesday.

The 11-year-old was being held in juvenile detention on suspicion of possessing a dangerous weapon and aggravated assault after other students at the suburban Salt Lake City elementary school told police he threatened them with the handgun.

Teachers and administrators at West Kearns Elementary School confronted the boy in class Monday after students reported the weapon, said Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley. The boy had an unloaded gun and ammunition in his backpack, Horsley said.

The boy waved the gun at others during a morning recess, school officials said. Other students, however, didn't report the threat until classes were nearly finished for the day. There was no immediate explanation for the delay, authorities said.

Authorities have not released the child's name. The .22-caliber handgun had been left at the boy's home by a relative, Horsley said.

The child made statements to administrators and mentioned the shooting rampage last week in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 children dead, authorities said.

The boy told others his parents sent him to school with the gun for protection, which his parents adamantly deny, Horsley said.

"The family is rocked by this. They have been very forthcoming," Horsley said.

The boy was expected to be charged in juvenile court Tuesday, Horsley said.

"This kid made a mistake, and he knows it," Horsley said. "He feels bad about it, and his parents are cooperating with the investigation. He will not be coming back to this school."

No one was injured.

Two other Utah schools were dealing with rumors of gun possession by students that turned out to be false, underscoring fears spread by the Connecticut shooting.

Separately, Utah's attorney general-elect, John Swallow, said he planned to make school safety a high priority and that fortifying schools might be one solution.

"When we had the issue with the airliners, for example, we strengthened the cockpit doors so that terrorists on the plane couldn't get through to the pilot," Swallow told The Associated Press.

Granite School District officials said they have a high level of security compared to other Utah schools. The district employs its own police force with 16 armed officers on patrol, plus school resource officers who are off-duty police officers.

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Associated Press writer Brady McCombs contributed to this report.

Bloggers Note:  What has this country come to when we have 11 year old children feel the need to take a weapon to school, not to settle scores with the local bully, but to protect themselves from threats that don’t even exist. What is wrong with this country?

Teens Arrested for Killing Gay College Student

 

Two teenagers, whose names haven't been released, confessed to killing a young gay man after the three had masturbated together in his car.

BY Diane Anderson-Minshall

December 14 2012 3:14 PM ET

 

Two teens have confessed to killing Lawrence Corrêa Biancão

Two teenagers were arrested Tuesday in connection with the Dec. 9 murder of a gay college student in Brazil, according to Campo Grande News and Gay Star News, which translated the Spanish language report into English. Lawrence Corrêa Biancão, a 20-year-old communications student who lived in the Southwestern Brazil city of Campo Grande, had been found dead, strangled with a seatbelt, with all of his belongings removed from the crime scene. The confession from the two teens arrested illuminates what may have happened during Biancão's final hours.

According to Campo Grande News, the teens said they were motivated by homophobia. One boy apparently told police, "He wanted to kiss me and I wanted to kill him." 

The police officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Wellington Oliveira, told reporters that the boys had planned to kill Biancão after meeting him two weeks prior at a local mall. He alleged that Biancão had flirted with him and then the two exchanged phone numbers. That same teen says he then told his alleged co-conspirator and they agreed they would kill him, rob him, dump his body, and drive the victim's stolen car out of the state.

The rest of the alleged confession tells a rather disturbing tale that psychologists are likely to chalk up to, at least in part, internalized homophobia on part of the teenagers. On Dec. 9, Biancão and the teen met at that same promenade, bringing along his friend. The three all reportedly drove away in the victim's vehicle, went to a different location, and all masturbated together. They returned to the mall and as Biancão and the teens were saying goodbyes one teen reached from the backseat and strangled Biancão with his own seatbelt.

Fortunately, the victim had told his friends the name and phone number of the guy he was going to meet. Once police went to the alleged killer's home, they found  all of Biancão's stolen belongings.

Biancão is one of the approximately 266 murders of LGBT people in Brazil this year alone, the highest anti-LGBT murder rate in the world. Professor Luiz Mott, an anthropologist at the Federal University of Bahia and founder of Brazil's Grupo Gay da Bahia told Campo Grande News, "The underreporting of these crimes is striking, indicating that the number represents just the tip of an iceberg of cruelty and blood. Since the federal government refuses to build a database on hate crimes against homosexuals, we based this report on newspaper and online news, which is certainly far from covering all of these claims."