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Mourners hold vigil for pupil shot by deputies

The teenager, shot by deputies at his middle school, was pronounced dead early Sunday.

LONGWOOD - Family and friends attended a candlelight vigil Sunday to remember 15-year-old Christopher Penley, who died two days after being shot by deputies at his school while holding a pellet gun.

Mourners visited Landmark Community church for an evening vigil for Penley, who was pronounced dead at 4:57 a.m. Sunday, the Seminole County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

Penley had been brain dead since about 10:30 a.m. Saturday, but his body was kept functioning so his organs could be harvested, said Mark Nation, a lawyer for Penley's parents.

The media were barred from entering the church near Penley's neighborhood, which has been reeling from the Friday shooting at Milwee Middle School. Family and friends say the boy was emotionally troubled, reportedly bullied at school and had run away from home several times.

"It's just unbelievable to me that he's gone," said Bucky Hurt, a family friend who had been with the boy's father, Ralph Penley, at the hospital. "It's very, very devastating. Good kid, too - it's a tragedy."

Penley took a pellet gun that resembled a 9mm handgun to school Friday. After a classroom scuffle in which he struggled with another boy over the gun, he was cornered by sheriff's deputies and a SWAT team in a school bathroom, authorities said.

Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger said the boy was suicidal, vowed to die during the incident and couldn't be talked into surrendering the weapon. Eslinger says Penley was shot after raising the gun at a deputy.

No one else at the 1,100-student middle school in suburban Orlando was injured.

Eslinger said Friday it wasn't until after the incident that authorities realized the weapon was 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 time line of events, including whether Christopher had died before Ralph Penley arrived. He said he would be investigating further.

Seminole County Sheriff's Lt. Dennis Lemma said Sunday the department had no immediate comment on Nation's statement.

"The sheriff is not looking to do anything until Tuesday," he said.

But 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.

[Last modified January 16, 2006, 00:40:11]