Boy Testifies He Shot Teacher by Accident

A 14-year-old boy accused of killing his English teacher wiped away tears Wednesday as he insisted under cross-examination that he hadn’t meant to fire the gun he brought to school.

“I pulled the trigger, but I didn’t try to. That was an accident. Mr. Grunow was one of my friends,” said Nathaniel Brazill, testifying for a second consecutive day at his first-degree murder trial.

“You want it to be an accident, don’t you?” asked prosecutor Marc Shiner.

“It was an accident,” Brazill responded.

“You don’t want anyone to believe you were angry enough to kill another human being, do you?”

“I was not.”

The defense rested its case Wednesday after calling family members and teachers to testify that Brazill’s actions the day teacher Barry Grunow was killed were unusual.

Closing arguments are scheduled for Monday. If Brazill is convicted of first-degree murder, he faces life in prison without parole. Jurors also have the option of second-degree murder or manslaughter, which carry less severe penalties.

Brazill fatally shot the 35-year-old Grunow last May 26, returning to Lake Worth Middle School two hours after a counselor suspended the seventh-grader for throwing a water balloon.

Brazill rode his bike back to school and testified that he went to Grunow’s classroom to talk to two girls but the teacher said no. The defense contends the shooting was an accident.

The boy was the star witness, and his short, simple answers on the stand were broadcast across the country on all-news cable channels. He spoke in the same calm, collected voice throughout his testimony but showed emotion for the first time Wednesday during questioning about the shooting.

Shiner, who grilled Brazill for more than an hour, had the teen show jurors how he held the palm-sized .25-caliber handgun and pulled back its slide, putting a bullet in the chamber.