Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives by Gary Younge Page A
Authors: Gary Younge
Tags: Death, Grief, Bereavement, Family & Relationships, Social Science, Political Science, Violence in Society, Public Policy, Social Policy
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loaded, he said they might have been. Finally they asked if Brandon had taken hunter-safety classes. According to the police report, Jerry said he hadn’t because he was doing the apprenticeship program, in which a child age ten or older can hunt for two years without the safety certificate if he or she is in the company of an adult. Beyond that, he’d given Brandon only basic instructions. “I told him to hold the gun with the barrel pointing in the air. Never to point the gun at anyone, and never put any shells in the gun unless you are outside.”
How that gun had got into Brandon’s bedroom was a mystery to Jerry. He thought it had originally been in the living room, and he didn’t remember moving it. All the guns in the house were his, he said, apart from the 20 gauge, which he’d bought Brandon for hunting. He said the .30–30 rifle that killed Tyler had been in his closet the whole time, and that he’d put three rounds in the tube roughly a year earlier and had not touched it since then.
Only then, when these preliminary questions were over, was Jerry told why Brandon was at the sheriff’s office. On hearing the news, according to the police report, “Jerry became quite emotional and acted normally for a person receiving the information that was provided to him.”
Jerry and Brandon were reunited so Brandon could be read his Miranda rights in Jerry’s presence. Before the interview, the detective “went over the truth/lie scenario” with Brandon to make sure he knew the difference. He also impressed on Brandon that if he didn’t know the answer to any question the police asked him, he shouldn’t guess, and it was okay to change his mind. Connie later told the police she’d never caught Brandon in a lie, though when he got in trouble in school he would occasionally offer only partial truths.
It was 2:30 a.m. when Brandon repeated his story. “The gun fired when it was being lowered in a diagonal manner. It caught on a piece ofmy shorts by the pocket. I was lowering the gun to set it against the wall because me and Tyler were done looking at it.” He didn’t rack the lever, he said. He didn’t know it was loaded. He was unfamiliar with the rifle.
It is relatively easy, with hindsight, to establish a pattern that would otherwise not have been obvious. Had Brandon not shot Tyler, a handful of minor episodes, nagging doubts, and odd moments relating to his behavior would probably never have amounted to anything. But he did shoot Tyler, and over the next few days police interviews with a range of people connected to one or both of them provided hints that, even if this was not an expected or even likely turn of events, it was always a possibility.
In her police interview, Connie said that the entire time she was with Jerry, she had always been nervous about the number of guns he had in the house and always assumed they were loaded. Once, Tyler had come back from Brandon’s house with knives. Lora had taken them away from him but had never thought to raise the matter with Jerry.
And then there were the incidents at school, which emerged in the wake of the shooting, when the children were receiving grief counseling. According to the police report, on Wednesday, the day before hunting season began, Brandon had boasted during math class that he had pointed a 20 gauge at a boy’s stomach while it was cocked and loaded without the safety on. Brandon also joked that because he hadn’t seen any deer yet, he’d told the boy that he should put antlers on his head and run around the garden like a big buck so Brandon could shoot at him. The child who’d overheard them couldn’t say for sure but thought they were “goofing around” about the antler story; he also thought that “they were serious” about aiming the 20 gauge at the boy’s stomach. Brandon first denied any knowledge of this exchange and then said he couldn’t remember.
I N EARLY S EPTEMBER 1881, wrote Kate McGill in her account as an
How that gun had got into Brandon’s bedroom was a mystery to Jerry. He thought it had originally been in the living room, and he didn’t remember moving it. All the guns in the house were his, he said, apart from the 20 gauge, which he’d bought Brandon for hunting. He said the .30–30 rifle that killed Tyler had been in his closet the whole time, and that he’d put three rounds in the tube roughly a year earlier and had not touched it since then.
Only then, when these preliminary questions were over, was Jerry told why Brandon was at the sheriff’s office. On hearing the news, according to the police report, “Jerry became quite emotional and acted normally for a person receiving the information that was provided to him.”
Jerry and Brandon were reunited so Brandon could be read his Miranda rights in Jerry’s presence. Before the interview, the detective “went over the truth/lie scenario” with Brandon to make sure he knew the difference. He also impressed on Brandon that if he didn’t know the answer to any question the police asked him, he shouldn’t guess, and it was okay to change his mind. Connie later told the police she’d never caught Brandon in a lie, though when he got in trouble in school he would occasionally offer only partial truths.
It was 2:30 a.m. when Brandon repeated his story. “The gun fired when it was being lowered in a diagonal manner. It caught on a piece ofmy shorts by the pocket. I was lowering the gun to set it against the wall because me and Tyler were done looking at it.” He didn’t rack the lever, he said. He didn’t know it was loaded. He was unfamiliar with the rifle.
It is relatively easy, with hindsight, to establish a pattern that would otherwise not have been obvious. Had Brandon not shot Tyler, a handful of minor episodes, nagging doubts, and odd moments relating to his behavior would probably never have amounted to anything. But he did shoot Tyler, and over the next few days police interviews with a range of people connected to one or both of them provided hints that, even if this was not an expected or even likely turn of events, it was always a possibility.
In her police interview, Connie said that the entire time she was with Jerry, she had always been nervous about the number of guns he had in the house and always assumed they were loaded. Once, Tyler had come back from Brandon’s house with knives. Lora had taken them away from him but had never thought to raise the matter with Jerry.
And then there were the incidents at school, which emerged in the wake of the shooting, when the children were receiving grief counseling. According to the police report, on Wednesday, the day before hunting season began, Brandon had boasted during math class that he had pointed a 20 gauge at a boy’s stomach while it was cocked and loaded without the safety on. Brandon also joked that because he hadn’t seen any deer yet, he’d told the boy that he should put antlers on his head and run around the garden like a big buck so Brandon could shoot at him. The child who’d overheard them couldn’t say for sure but thought they were “goofing around” about the antler story; he also thought that “they were serious” about aiming the 20 gauge at the boy’s stomach. Brandon first denied any knowledge of this exchange and then said he couldn’t remember.
I N EARLY S EPTEMBER 1881, wrote Kate McGill in her account as an
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