When police officers encounter a suspect with a weapon, sometimes they mistakenly assume the worst. A potential case of police misconduct may have occurred in Texas yesterday when a teenager with a pellet gun was shot to death by police at school. Though the tragic case is not from New York, it still shows how quickly a situation can turn deadly because of a potential overuse of force.

Yesterday, a 15-year-old boy was shot three times in a hallway of a middle school in Brownsville, Texas. The tragic death was the result of a misunderstanding.

The incident began when the young boy walked into a classroom and punched a classmate in the face. When police arrived at the school, the 15-year-old appeared to have a handgun and according to police would not drop the weapon. Unknown to police, the handgun was actually a pellet gun.

The two police officers that confronted the 15-year-old asked the boy to drop the weapon multiple times but the boy refused. Though no one else was in the hallway because teachers locked classroom doors, the police officers fired a combined three shots. The 15-year-old was hit twice; once in the chest and once in the head.

The parents of the 15-year-old were outraged and confused by the level of force used by police. The boy's father asked, "Why was so much excess force used on a minor?"

Police believe the student started the incident to draw attention to himself, but the boy's parents have struggled to piece together the events of the day. Neither the mother nor father noticed a problem the night before. The father said his son improved in school, helped neighborhood kids fix bikes and mowed neighborhood lawns.

Source: latino.foxnews.com, "Texas teen shot in school by police had a pellet gun," Jan. 5, 2012