'An accident' - anguished parents comfort suspect in school shooting

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Polly Powell rushed home when she saw reports of a shooting at her son's school on television. She knew 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill had been sent home for throwing water balloons and she was concerned for his welfare.

He wasn't there when she arrived. Soon, the phone started ringing off the hook as the nation learned that her son was suspected of killing a teacher he ''loved.''

''My sister called and said 'Polly, you need to go to the police department and see if they got that boy.' It never dawned on me that this could be my child to do such an act,'' Powell told The Associated Press in her first interview since the May 26 shooting.

Brazill has been accused of killing 35-year-old Lake Worth Community High School teacher Barry Grunow. Police say Brazill shot Grunow in the face with a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol he had stolen from his grandfather's house.

After being sent home, Brazill returned to the school and went to Grunow's classroom, where he asked Grunow if he could talk to two girls in the class, police said.

When the English teacher shooed him away, Brazill pulled the gun from his pocket and fired, authorities said. A surveillance camera caught the shooting on tape, but police haven't released the video.

The case is scheduled to go before a Palm Beach County grand jury on June 12, said Brazill's lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Randy Berman.

Powell rushed to the police department. She kept asking an officer if her son was there. When he said yes, she began trembling and shaking, saying no, it couldn't be her child. Officers took her to a room where Brazill sat alone.

The teen began crying when his mother walked in. All she could do was hold him, Powell said.

The mother said the shooting had to be an accident.

''He loved Mr. Grunow. They were best friends,'' said Powell, a cook at an Episcopal retirement center for the last 11 years. ''You don't just shoot your best friend. This was just an accident, a tragedy.''

Powell said she blames herself and wants to tell Grunow's wife, Pam Grunow, how bad she feels for her and her two children.

''Our prayers go out to them,'' Powell said. ''With the help of the Lord, we will all get through this.''

Brazill's father, a postal carrier who lives about 200 miles north in Daytona Beach, was performing volunteer work at his church when his cell phone rang. It was his brother calling from Lake Worth.

''I immediately began to pray that it wasn't actually Nate they were talking about,'' said the father, who is also named Nathaniel Brazill. ''What made me realize it was true was my father got on the phone and he was crying.''

The elder Brazill called his son a ''bookworm'' who wasn't interested in athletics, but loved to read and talk and joke around. He was teaching his 2-year-old sister, Ebony, the ABCs, the parents said.

The honor roll student and budding musician also had ambitions to become a Secret Service agent for the president, they said.

Since the shooting, both said they have been trying to offer support and care.

''We don't talk about what happened,'' the boy's father said. ''We are just trying to comfort him and assure him we are here for him.''

When they visit the teen-ager at the juvenile detention center where he is awaiting a grand jury hearing, they talk about family and pray.

According to police, a female classmate said Nathaniel told her as he was leaving that he was going to come back and shoot the counselor who suspended him.

''Just watch, I'll be all over the news,'' he told her, Police Chief William Smith said Wednesday.

Berman said he understands the teen liked one of the girls in Grunow's room. Maybe Brazill just wanted to impress them by showing off the gun, Berman said.

''When Grunow confronted him, he could have pulled it out and it accidentally went off,'' Berman said.

No matter the circumstance, the boy is not an adult who deserves to go to prison, the elder Brazill said.

''He's a child. He's still a child,'' he said.