Teen dies in accidental shooting at school

[Times photo: Joseph Garnett Jr.] A Ridgewood High School student tries to compose herself as she and others stand near the scene of Wednesday's shooting.

In the car after class, Teddy Niziol, 16, handed his best friend a gun. But Steve Moschella didn't know it was loaded, and he pulled the trigger.

By AMY ELLIS and TAMARA LUSH

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 20, 2000

NEW PORT RICHEY -- Teddy Niziol brought a .22-caliber Magnum handgun to school on Wednesday, apparently to show his friends.

As he pulled his Toyota 4-Runner out of the parking lot of Ridgewood High School, minutes after school let out, he passed the gun to Steven Moschella, sitting behind him in the back seat.

Steven Moschella, 16, is charged with manslaughter in the accidental shooting of Teddy Niziol, below.

Moschella took the gun out of its soft leather case and brandished it in both hands. Not knowing the gun was loaded, police said, Moschella pulled the trigger.

A bullet sliced through the driver's seat "at about heart level," Pasco school officials said.

Teddy, a 16-year-old junior, opened the door to the Toyota and fell to the ground. Within seconds, the school resource officer was giving the boy CPR, but he never found a pulse.

Teddy was pronounced dead soon after at North Bay Medical Center in New Port Richey.

Like Teddy, Steven also was 16 and a junior.

And he was Teddy's best friend.

A little after 5 p.m., Steven was booked into the county jail on a charge of manslaughter in the first fatal school shooting in Pasco County history. Authorities said he admitted firing the gun.

"This was just a senseless, foolish act that cost a young man his life," said Pasco schools Superintendent John Long. "It was not an act of intentional violence, but the result is just the same. My heart goes out to the families of both these young men."

The shooting came just hours after Pasco sheriff's officials launched a toll-free hotline for students to anonymously report guns, weapons or drugs on school campuses.

Sgt. Brian Prescott stood before reporters early Wednesday and said, "Pasco schools are safe." The hotline was created, he said, "not in response to a problem," but to prevent a tragedy like those that have rocked school campuses around the country.

Just a few hours later, Prescott heard a frantic Cpl. Joe Little calling for backup from the rear parking lot of Ridgewood. Little, the school resource officer assigned to the high school, was less than 100 feet from the Toyota when the gun was fired, Prescott said.

"He said, "He's hurt, he's down. Get here now, I need you here now,' " Prescott said. Within minutes, dozens of deputies were at the school, where paramedics were working to save Teddy.

Paul Jones, 17, was signing up for the school talent show when he saw the parking lot fill with patrol cars. Jones saw Teddy on the ground. The boy's body looked limp.

"He was pretty messed up," Jones said. "I saw him sprawled out and put on a stretcher."

School Principal Art O'Donnell was in the front parking lot watching buses leave when he got the call that a student had been shot. O'Donnell, whose son, David, is a sophomore at Ridgewood, took off running.

"I had just seen David out front so I knew he wasn't involved," he said. "You always think the worst, that it's a drive-by or a violent rampage of some kind. We knew pretty quickly that wasn't the case."

As deputies blocked the streets leading into the school, parents arriving to pick up their children peppered them with questions.

Penny Kelsey, whose daughter Amy usually rides home with Teddy, frantically searched the parking lot for her daughter. Two of Amy's friends, Laura Hair, 15, and Christina Mahr, 16, had burst through her front door minutes earlier, saying Teddy had been shot.

"My first thought was, "Where's Amy?' " said Kelsey, an emergency room nurse. "What are these kids thinking, carrying guns to school? The stupidity of it. These are all good kids."

Sheriff's officials said five students, including Teddy's sister, Nicolette, 15, were in the car.

Sheriff Lee Cannon said detectives still were trying to determine where Teddy got the gun.

"Teddy was a good kid," Principal O'Donnell said. "He'd had maybe one or two discipline referrals but nothing serious."

Steven Moschella's brother Kenny, 13, said Teddy was "like another older brother to me."

Fighting back tears outside his family's home Wednesday evening, Kenny said he walked home from school and was told by his little brother that "Teddy had been shot and Steven had done it."

"Teddy used to come over here all the time and play with us," he said. "He was super nice."

Josh Stamps, 15, a neighbor of Teddy, recalled when the pair were younger and would play in Josh's swimming pool. Josh's mother, Renee, remembers those innocent days.

"It hit so close to home, it's scary," she said, shaking her head. "You always think, "Nah, not here.' This school is as safe as any. I don't think that any school is safe any more."

After most parents and students had gone home, Pasco's top law enforcement and school officials stood in a circle in the school parking lot wondering whether anything like a safety hotline could have prevented the tragedy.

"I don't know that we could have prevented this, when a student keeps a gun in his car and we don't know anything about it," said Superintendent Long. "That's what's so frustrating."

Hours after the shooting, Teddy's father, also named Ted Niziol, methodically swept dirt off the walkway leading to his front door.

"My son went to school and he didn't come home," said Niziol, 41.

He leaned on the broom and paused.

"Right now, we're going to grieve a lot."

-- Staff writers Kent Fischer and Cary Davis contributed to this report.

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