Questions rise in shooting's wake

Two students say a note on the school resource officer's desk said a student had a gun at school Wednesday.

[Times photo: Dan McDuffie] Ridgewood High School student Steven Moschella, left, talks Thursday with his attorney, Keith Hammond.

By AMY ELLIS and TAMARA LUSH

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 21, 2000

NEW PORT RICHEY -- As they mourned for the classmate shot and killed in the school parking lot a day earlier, some students at Ridgewood High School on Thursday rallied around the teen's best friend, the boy accused of pulling the trigger.

But on Thursday night, officials were being asked whether they could have prevented the death of 16-year-old Teddy Niziol.

[Times photo: Janel Schroeder] Samantha Lang, 16, was among those saying authorities did nothing about warnings of a student with a gun at school.

About 300 people crowded into the school library for a 7 p.m. meeting called to answer parent's questions about the incident. After about an hour, the meeting broke down with parents and students hurling accusations at sheriff's officials.

"At 9:30 yesterday, they had a note" that a student had a gun, yelled one Ridgewood student, pointing at Cpl. Joe Little. "It sat on his desk all day long." Two Ridgewood students stood and told the crowd that a note had been placed on the school resource officer's desk on Wednesday morning saying that a student had a gun at school that day.

Diane Alred, who has two children attending Ridgewood, said she knew of three teachers who knew about the note.

"If they had gone after this, this boy would still be alive," Alred said.

Sgt. Brian Prescott, the head school resource officer, told the crowd he could not comment on whether there had been such a note but said authorities would investigate any report of a weapon on campus.

Sophomore John Moran, one of the students who spoke out, shook his head.

"They knew about this at 9:30 (a.m.) and did nothing," John said.

Earlier Thursday, friends who knew Teddy as the hyperactive class clown wondered where he could have gotten the .22-caliber Magnum that killed him.

They joked they would miss Teddy's "funky hair" and his "little nub," the right index finger that was severed by an exercise machine when he was 2. They remembered Teddy and his friend Steven Moschella moshing to punk band Godsmack just a few weeks earlier.

About a dozen teens wrote tear-stained letters of support to Moschella, 16, who was being held without bail on a charge of manslaughter. He admitted accidentally shooting Teddy in the back minutes after school let out on Wednesday.

"We're all going to miss Teddy, but we want Steve to know that we don't blame him for this," said Icia Lawson, 16, who went with Teddy to Ridgewood's Homecoming in October. "Everybody knows he would never hurt Teddy."

A small makeshift memorial to Teddy was placed at the entrance to the back parking lot, where the shooting took place. A teddy bear, notes from students and roses were hooked to the chain-link fence.

Principal Art O'Donnell said about 100 kids met with crisis counselors to talk about the killing, the first fatal school shooting in Pasco history.

"Today was not a bad day, but it was a long, depressing day," O'Donnell said. "There were a lot of tender moments with the kids."

Four other students, including Teddy's 15-year-old sister, Nicolette, were in Teddy's Toyota 4-Runner when he passed the gun to Steven, who was sitting behind Teddy in the back seat.

Though Pasco sheriff's deputies said Steven admitted pulling the trigger, his family and friends say he should not be sitting in jail for what they believe is a tragic accident.

"Steven's family is ridden with grief," Laura Richards, Steven's aunt, told reporters outside the family's New Port Richey home. "The police feel they have no choice but to hold (Steven). When they find out this was a true accident, I am hoping and praying that they will drop the charges."

Steven, clad in baggy, jail-issue blue pants and shirt, appeared before Circuit Judge Wayne Cobb in a two-minute hearing Thursday afternoon in Dade City. Cobb declined to release Steven to his parents.

Defense attorney Keith Hammond said Steven was not a troublemaker or a flight risk.

"At this point he's grieving," Hammond said. "These two boys were like brothers. They loved each other."

Hammond said Steven's only prior arrest was a shoplifting charge that is pending. Sending the boy to jail, even for a short time, would be wrong, he said.

"It wasn't intended. It wasn't his gun. He didn't bring it to school," Hammond said. "It all happened in a split second."

Steven was allowed to speak with his parents Wednesday night before he was taken to juvenile detention. The boy wept during the meeting and expressed remorse, Hammond said.

If tried and convicted as a juvenile, Steven could be locked up until his 19th birthday; if prosecutors charge him as an adult, he could face up to 15 years in prison, Hammond said.

John Moran was friends with both boys. He said he talked with Teddy's father, Ted Niziol, late Wednesday.

"He was broken up, but he said he knew it was an accident and he didn't blame Steve for it," John said. "All he wanted to know was where the gun came from."

Sheriff's spokesman Jon Powers would not say whether investigators have determined where Teddy got the gun.

Hours before the shooting, one of Teddy's closest friends, Eddie Lawson, 17, was arrested on a warrant for possession of a weapon on school property. The charge stems from an August incident in which a Ridgewood student was shocked with a 4-inch stun gun.

Eddie Lawson, a wrestler at Ridgewood, said he had only handled the stun gun, not fired it. He said he never heard Teddy talk of having a gun and could not imagine where he would have gotten one.

"Teddy was not into anything like that," he said.

But Lawson's mother, Melinda, said she had recently warned Teddy not to come to her home anymore. She was concerned about some "older kids, dropouts," that Teddy had begun hanging out with and told him he would have to choose between her kids and "these new friends."

"My kids used to ride home with Teddy all the time," she said. "I thank God a thousand times that they weren't in that car. I knew Teddy was heading for something like this."

Richards, Steven's aunt, said she hopes friends of Teddy's and Steven's now realize their actions can have deadly consequences.

"Both families will figure out a way to deal with all the innocence lost by both of these boys," she said, her voice choking with emotion. "Lives can change in an instant. These are kids who don't realize their lives can just go away."

Staff writers Kent Fischer and Chase Squires contributed to this report.

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