That sudden act of violence was shocking enough. But almost as disturbing in some respects was the fact that someone like Brazill would be charged with committing it. Far from fitting the profile of the angry, alienated loner just waiting to explode, he was an excellent student—getting mostly A's and B's and a place on the honor roll—who also seemed possessed of a cheery personality. "He was like a comedian," says Rosales. "He'd always be telling jokes and making everybody laugh." Though crime was not unknown in his neighborhood, he had never been in any sort of trouble before. "This is not a bad kid," says Jim Kelly, the school police chief for Palm Beach County. "This is a good kid."
In reconstructing events, authorities were at a loss to explain what had caused a good kid to turn into an accused killer. At home he may have been under some stress: Last fall his mother, Polly Whitefield, 34, underwent a radical mastectomy for breast cancer. "He was right there for me when I needed him," says Whitefield. "But he didn't miss a day of school because of [my illness]." In recent years, Whitefield, who works as a cook at a Lake Worth retirement home, had summoned police to her apartment during altercations with her husband, Marshall Powell. Apparently no charges were ever brought, however, and Brazill, whose biological father, Nathaniel Brazill Sr., lives near Daytona Beach, did not seem unduly troubled.
Nonetheless, police say that a few days before the shooting, Nate stole the Raven semiautomatic from his grandfather Elmore McCray's apartment, where it was stored in a dresser drawer. (He reportedly showed the gun to a couple of friends.) After being kicked out of school for throwing the water balloons, he made his way home, a few miles away, retrieved the weapon and headed straight back.
One of Brazill's friends, Ricardo Ripoll, 13, saw Brazill in the school with the gun in his hand. In an affidavit, police reported that Brazill later said Grunow had pushed him while blocking his entry into class. But according to authorities, a nearby surveillance camera, which captured the whole incident on videotape, showed no contact between student and teacher. And Brazill seemed to like Grunow, whose class he attended this year. "Everyone, including Nate, spoke well of him," Nate's father told the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
Indeed, Grunow had an enviable reputation as a student-friendly teacher. Married and the father of son Samuel, 5, and daughter Lee-Anne, 6 months, he had been teaching at the school for six years. "He tried to be a good role model," says longtime friend Tim Kennedy, "and have a positive effect on the kids." In that he succeeded. Though casual in his dress—he almost always wore jeans or khakis—Grunow brought a passion to literature. When his class read The Odyssey, he encouraged the students to come to class wearing the robes of classical Greek mythology. Says Edgar Ripoll, 16: "He was one of the teachers who made you want to come back and visit him."
Instead, kids and teachers alike were left to try to extract some good from his tragic death. On May 29 hundreds of mourners gathered at an antiviolence rally in Lake Worth to honor Grunow. Left unsaid was the fact that it was just the sort of gathering Nate Brazill might have attended. This year teachers and fellow students had been so impressed by his maturity that he had been nominated to be a peer mediator, who helps other kids settle conflicts. He would have begun training for the program this fall.
Bill Hewitt
Lori Rozsa and Don Sider in Lake Worth
- Contributors:
- Lori Rozsa,
- Don Sider.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
