Tuesday, May 11, 1999
Counselors visit Westwood school
7th-grader critical after shooting
BY TANYA BRICKING
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Counselors talked about the dangers of guns Monday in another school after another shooting made the lesson all too real.
It wasn't a school shooting like the recent massacre in Colorado.
It was gunplay in a Westwood apartment on Mother's Day that left Brandon Lewis in critical condition.
Brandon, 13, a seventh-grader at Westwood Elementary, remained in critical condition Monday at Good Samaritan Hospital.
A 14-year-old friend is charged in Hamilton County Juvenile Court with negligent assault, meaning it appeared accidental, said Lt. Mike Jones, commander of Cincinnati's homicide unit.
At Westwood Elementary, counselors offered to talk, said Barbara Whitlow, 12, a sixth-grader who lives in Brandon's complex at Ferncrest Court Apartments.
“He's (Brandon) probably the sweetest teen-ager I know,” said Barbara, whose mother gave her permission to speak to The Cincinnati Enquirer about Brandon. “He does a lot of nice stuff for people. He helps the older people with their groceries. Little kids look up to him.”
But just after 7 p.m. Sunday, he was shot in the head with a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
“I didn't even think it was for real,” a neighbor said during a call to a 911 operator. She had been out on her balcony grilling dinner when she heard the shot.
“Oh, my god!” she told an operator. “I thought they were playing. Two kids, you know? And then I see the blood, and then I'm saying, "They need to quit playing,' ... There's so much blood over there.”
Barbara, the sixth-grader, saw the awful scene.
“I just couldn't get calmed down,” she said. “Shaking. Crying. It was just terrible.”
Emotions are still running high, said Shirley Hocker, a grandmother of 16 who lives in the complex.
Ms. Hocker said she will be keeping a closer eye on the children. She is afraid to let them even play basketball in the parking lot anymore because she doesn't know how to protect them.
“I think it's awful,” she said. “I think it's a concern with most of the parents.”
Cincinnati police have recovered the gun used in Sunday's shooting. But it's unclear where the gun came from or what the boys were doing before the shooting happened.
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