Teen Shot at Fla. School Is Brain-Dead

Parents Had Told Police That Boy's Gun Probably Wasn't Real

LONGWOOD, Fla., Jan. 14 -- The parents of a 15-year-old boy accused of terrorizing classmates with a pistol warned authorities the weapon probably was fake before police shot him in a middle school restroom, a family attorney said Saturday.

Christopher Penley of Winter Springs was accused of pulling a gun in a classroom Friday and pointing it at other students. When he later raised the weapon at a deputy, a SWAT team member shot him, authorities said.

Officers who had responded to the 1,100-student school in suburban Orlando believed the gun was a Beretta 9mm and did not learn until after the shooting that it was a pellet gun.

The boy's parents, Ralph and Donna Penley, were in contact with authorities during the incident and told them they believed their son did not have a real gun, said family attorney Mark Nation. Ralph Penley went to the school to attempt to talk his son out of the situation.

"When he got to the school, they would not let him in, and he was later told Christopher had been shot," Nation said.

Penley was clinically brain-dead Saturday, Nation said. "His organs are in the process of being harvested."

Friends and investigators say Penley was bullied and emotionally distraught, and went to school that day expecting to die.

Patrick Lafferty, 15, a neighbor who has known Penley for about six years, said he was not surprised by what happened. He said Penley was a loner who "told me he wanted to kill himself dozens of times."

"He would put his headphones on and walk up and down the street, and he would work out a lot," preferring to keep to himself, Lafferty said.

Kelly Swofford, a family spokeswoman and neighbor of the boy's parents, said the boy had run away from home several times. Her son, Jeffery Swofford, 11, said Penley had said he had something planned.

"He said, 'I hope I die today because I don't really like my life,' " Jeffery Swofford said.

Maurice Cotey, 13, told WKMG-TV in Orlando that he struggled with Penley over the gun after everyone else had left the classroom.