Gil Collar Dead: Friends Baffled By Killing Of Ala. College Student (CORRECTED)

MOBILE, Ala. -- Friends of a University of South Alabama student are questioning his fatal shooting by a campus police officer.

Colgan Meanor says 18-year-old Gil Collar of Wetumpka was an outgoing athlete who loved wrestling in high school. She says she's shocked over his killing by an officer outside the university police department early Saturday.

Another friend of Collar, Tyler Kendrick, says the officer shouldn't have drawn his weapon on an unarmed person.

School officials say the student ignored repeated commands to stop. The school says Collar was nude and acting erratically when he confronted the officer.

The officer is on paid leave, and an autopsy will determine if drugs or alcohol were involved.

Campus officials say the confrontation was recorded by security cameras.

CORRECTION: An earlier headline on this story wrongly identified the dead student as Colgan Meanor. We regret the error and any confusion it may have created.

Loading Slideshow

• Sandy Hook Elementary

  Molly Delaney, left, holds her 11-year-old daughter, Milly Delaney, during a service in honor of the victims who died a day earlier when a gunman opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., as people gathered at St. John's Episcopal Church , Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, in the Sandy Hook village of Newtown, Conn. The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims.

• Clackamas Town Center

  A security guard looks over the food court at the Clackamas Town Center mall as it opens, on Friday, Dec 14, 2012 in Portland, Ore. The mall is reopening, three days after a gunman killed two people and wounded a third amid a holiday shopping crowd estimated at 10,000. The shooter, Jacob Tyler Roberts, killed himself after the attack Tuesday afternoon.

• St. Vincent's Hospital Shooting

  Birmingham police arrive at the scene of a shooting at St. Vincent's Hospital on Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012 in Birmingham, Ala. Authorities in Alabama say a man opened fire the hospital, wounding an officer and two employees before he was fatally shot by police. Birmingham Police Sgt. Johnny Williams says the officer and employees suffered injuries that are not considered life-threatening.

• Sikh Temple Shooting

  Mourners attend the funeral and memorial service for the six victims of the Sikh temple of Wisconsin mass shooting in Oak Creek, Wis., Friday, Aug 10, 2012. The public service was held in the Oak Creek High School. Three other people were wounded in the shooting last Sunday at the temple. Wade Michael Page, 40, killed five men and one woman, and injured two other men. Authorities say Page then ambushed the first police officer who responded, shooting him nine times and leaving him in critical condition. A second officer then shot Page in the stomach, and Page took his own life with a shot to the head. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

• July 2012: Aurora, Colorado

  A policeman stands outside a Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colo., where a heavily armed man opened fire, killing at least 12 people and injuring 50 others.

• May 2012: Seattle, Wash.

  Friends, family and employees react after a shooting at Cafe Racer in Seattle on May 30, 2012. A lone gunman killed four people Wednesday -- three were shot to death at a cafe, and a fourth in a carjacking. The gunman later killed himself.

• April 2012: Oakland, California

  Alameda County Community Food Bank workers move a memorial from a parking spot next to Oikos University in Oakland, Calif., Monday, April 23, 2012. Some students and staff members have arrived to resume class at Oikus University, the small California Christian college where seven people were shot to death earlier in April.

• November 2009: Fort Hood, Texas

  Panou Xiong, center, is comforted by family and friends following a Remembrance Ceremony commemorating the one-year anniversary of the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military base, where 13 people were killed and dozens wounded,, Nov. 5, 2010 in Fort Hood, Texas. Xiong's son, Pfc. Kham Xiong, was killed in the shooting. <em><strong>CORRECTION:</strong> This slide originally said that the Fort Hood shooting took place in November 2010. The shooting took place in November 2009.</em>

• March 2009: Kinston, Alabama

  The charred Kinston, Ala. living room where suspected gunman Michael McLendon allegedly killed his mother Lisa McLendon, is photographed Wednesday, March 11, 2009. Authorities were working Wednesday to learn why a gunman set off on a rampage, killing 10 people across two rural Alabama counties.

• August 2007: Blacksburg, Va.

  An unidentified family member of slain Virginia Tech student Daniel Alejandro Prez Cueva, pauses at his memorial stone after the dedication of the memorial for the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting in Blacksburg, Va., Sunday, Aug. 19, 2007. More than 10,000 people gathered on the main campus lawn as Virginia Tech dedicated 32 memorial stones for those killed by a student in a mass shooting on campus last April.

• April 1999: Littleton, Colo.

  This aerial shows the news media compound near Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., April 21, 1999. Media from around the world poured into the area after 15 people were killed during a shooting spree inside the school.

Comments

[heatherox]

05:54 PM on 10/08/2012

This was a senseless murder. Unless that kid was armed as well, he was not a threat to that campus cop. He was just really intoxicated, had most likely blacked out, and needed to be knocked out to sleep it off... not shot!

[Gary Amedee]

04:47 AM on 10/08/2012

Did the police officer have a nightstick or a truncheon? If he did he should be on a manslaughter charge.

[Martin Kellem]

10:33 PM on 10/07/2012

No matter what this security guy could have done, everybody would be upset at him. "How can you beat a naked man?". I think it is tragic the kid was shot. I bet the cop feels terrible. If a man charges at you, wearing clothes or naked, what are you to do? Just wrestle with him? The guy was a wrestler himself. If a naked man came up to anyone else, I don't think people would be so upset if they defended themselves. You don't have to have a gun or knife to be a threat. If the cop tried to take him down, the kid could have gotten to his weapon. What happened was terrible. I don't think I could have pulled the trigger myself. And I would have been beat by a naked man instead and everybody would be making "funny" comments how I got beat by a naked man. The guard was in a no-win situation. Maybe the problem was the kid. Maybe the problem was a kid who partied too hard or had some problems and became a threat. If my daughter was a student there, I would be glad the guy was shot instead of him coming up to a young woman alone on campus in his condition.

[Brett Lucey]

01:45 PM on 10/08/2012

It really shouldn't matter what the cause of the kid's actions was. The kid could have a mental illness and maybe was scared, confused, and unable to understand what was going on. Did he deserve to be detained by force? Absolutely. Did he deserve to be shot? Absolutely not.

Police arrest plenty of non-compliant people every single day. How was this situation so dangerous that shooting the kid was the right course of action.

Lethal force should be an absolute last resort. This is why police have less-than-lethal options at their disposal. If a naked person ignoring instructions is valid cause for lethal force, then it seems like ANY situation would be cause for lethal force.

[AFDEE53]

05:26 PM on 10/07/2012

THIS IS CRAZY!! An 18 year old kid naked, scared and maybe hurt, get's shot in the chest. Where was he hiding his weapon? Another mother loses her child for not a very good reason, just like Treyvon in Florida. Where is Rev Al Sharpton and the protesters. This kind of right to kill a child has to stop. University Students raise up and call this shooting what it is, MURDER!

[Marvelousdreams]

04:35 PM on 10/07/2012

Where was the threat? Naked with no weapon. He could have been in trouble. He could have been given a drug and was there for help. Why was the first thought that he was dangerous? What if it had been a female student? Would the reaction been the same, or would the rescue response been triggered instead. That poor young man. .

In yesteryear...a person acting like that young man would have been straight jacketed, not slaughtered.

[Hydroponicnomnom]

08:09 PM on 10/07/2012

We need to setup militias, depose the police, and reform our governing rules. This is ridiculous, and it is within our rights to do so.

[gfgarv2]

04:35 PM on 10/07/2012

I hope the cop goes to jail. There was no reason for this.

[lalocasf]

03:53 PM on 10/07/2012

Campus police officers have deadly weapons on the them? Terrifying. I wonder what kind of training they receive. Is it the same as regular police officers? This is yet another tragic story of an unarmed man dying at the hands of a trigger-happy officer. This cop had no choice but the shoot this student? Aren't you carrying any non-deadly weapons on you like a taser that you could have used to subdue the guy instead???

[abuja19]

03:19 PM on 10/07/2012

Too much violence being carried out by all kinds of people in America. Scary times.

[LLeGrande]

03:05 PM on 10/07/2012

We never seem to ask: WHY THE KILL SHOT BY POLICE?

Again and again we read about 'shoot to kill' only by police when their lives are clearly not in imminent danger.

This student had no weapon, was naked, perhaps hostile from alcohol or other drugs. Would not a shot to the leg not have been adequate to stop the advance? Where was this officer's Taser weapon? Where was his night stick?

It is long past time throughout this country to deal with execution by police.

[Piraticalsimian]

04:03 PM on 10/07/2012

He didn't need to shoot him AT ALL! What kind of cop is afraid to tackle a naked kid!? Bullets can and should be any officers LAST RESORT.

[patricialjd]

02:44 PM on 10/07/2012

It's so much easier to settle any infraction with a bullet. Martial arts and a billy club would take some effort. But cowardly action out of fear trumps imaginative reactions....tunnel vision and frozen brains and a gun...........deadly combination. Sorry for his family. That he lost his life to a gun toting guard on a college campus where he probably felt safe is horrible.

[mackjaz]

02:42 PM on 10/07/2012

People who are naked are either fun loving college kids, or dangerously unbalanced. Impossible to tell from this skimpy article. Cops are trained to overly cautious because naked folks are frequently not rational.

[MathIsTruth]

02:58 PM on 10/07/2012

If this is an example of police training, then there is something horribly wrong with police training and it must be changed dramatically.

[JoeLosFeliz]

03:29 PM on 10/07/2012

1) He was naked.
2) He was unarmed.

Rational or not, how could he have posed any sort of deadly threat to the campus police officer?

[Parade Keegan]

02:37 PM on 10/07/2012

Well, he didn't have a concealed weapon. Police working while being cowards is unacceptable.

[CASSIE60]

02:32 PM on 10/07/2012

It not as though he was hiding a weapon....they just wanted to kill some one that day...this is beyond senseless...

[RutherfordLaser]

02:30 PM on 10/07/2012

Campus police have no business carrying guns to begin with.