Pubdate: Mon, 25 Feb 2008
Source: Times-News, The (ID)
Copyright: 2008 Magic Valley Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.magicvalley.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/595
Author: Nate Poppino

A COMMUNITY LOSS

Two Years Later, Family Seeks Anwers To Boy's Death

Everyone loved Cody Cornelison.

His grandmother said so. His principal said so. Even  the law
enforcement personnel who knew him said they  liked him.

Everyone loved Cody Cornelison. Except, perhaps, Cody.

Struggling in school, having admitted to drug use for  the second
time, the 13-year-old Hagerman boy killed  himself on Feb. 9, 2006.

That fatal shot robbed his family of their son, and a  community of a
child still mourned to this day.

Cody's death happened in minutes, yet it plunged his  family into two
years of legal wrangling over just who  may have been at fault.

There's no disputing, Myrna Cornelison said, that her  grandson wasn't
the best student. He had attention  deficit disorder and was in the
process of being  diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder. He was the type of child to cave in rather  than explode
under pressure. He struggled in the  classroom.

His grandparents, caring for the boy during his  parents' divorce,
considered pulling him from the  school district.

"We knew he was unhappy," said Myrna, a former janitor  at the school.
"(But) as grandparents, it's pretty  scary to do home schooling."

Lyle Cornelison was once a Navy gunner's mate. For  Cody's 12th
Christmas, he bought his grandson the  rifle. The boy, Myrna said, was
carefully taught how to  safely handle the gun.

The following autumn was a hard one for Cody at school,  where he
refuse to do any work in his classes and was  even suspended for a day
for fighting. His father, Mark  Cornelison, was soon to be released
from the Community  Work Center in Twin Falls, and Cody planned move
with  him to a different school district.

But in December school officials confronted Cody with  suspicion that
he was high in class. He admitted to  using marijuana the previous
week, but fled the school  after he was told he would have to meet
with the  principal and face punishment.

Police later found him, but they worked out a deal with  Cody: Stay 
clean or go to detention, according to a  statement submitted to the 
Gooding County Sheriff's  Department by Hagerman Police Chief Loren Miller.

The deal didn't hold. During a series of drug tests of  other students
requested by Hagerman Junior/Senior High  School Principal Mark Kress,
a student who tested  positive for marijuana identified Cody as his
source.

Miller, who had been administering the tests, and  Gooding County
sheriff's deputies were summoned to the  school that day in February
to take custody of Cody and  the other students. Miller talked to
Cody, then took  him home to fetch a couple of pipes.

As Miller spoke to his grandmother, Cody went into his  bedroom and
shot himself.

Myrna Cornelison covered the wound, trying to stop the  bleeding.
Miller radioed for help and came to assist  her. Two years later, the
scene is vivid in Myrna's  mind.

"I put my finger over (the wound), and then I felt his  spirit leave
his body," she said, tearing up at the  memory.

Her grief gradually turned to disgust. She believes her  grandson was
pushed past the brink.

A classmate told the family that officers had Cody  backed up against
a wall at the school and were yelling  at him.

And when Miller and Cody arrived at his home, the chief  spoke loudly
about arresting Cody, seeming intent on  intimidating him, Myrna said.
Though she called the  school that afternoon for another matter, she
said, she  was never told Cody had even been pulled out of class.

The family sought legal recourse. But they were  misinformed about the
statute of limitations for filing  against a state agency, she said,
and two local  lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union, state Rep.
  Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, and U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson,  R-Idaho, were
unable to help. The whole problem, she  said, was downplayed in the
incident reports by what  she calls a "good old boys" club in the county.

"They watch each other's backs," she said, noting that  the
investigation was handled by Gooding County  deputies.

Gooding County Sheriff Shaun Gough said his department  was just
following standard protocol when it  interviewed Chief Miller and
checked his gun and other  equipment. Deputies behaved respectfully,
he said. And  it's far from the first time a grieving family has
searched for someone to blame, he said.

"They start asking all these questions," Gough said.  "And it happens
a lot."

Idaho State Police Maj. Dan Thornton, who is in charge  of the state
agency's major criminal investigations,  said it is standard practice
for law enforcement to  conduct their own internal investigations, as
Gooding  County did for itself while it worked with Hagerman  police.
Though he could not speak to Cody's situation,  he said if an agency
has the manpower, it will have one  officer review what happened and
determine whether  other officers followed proper procedures and
training.  ISP has a whole investigations unit dedicated to  internal
reviews.

Miller could not be reached for comment for this  article. But Kress,
who told officers that Cody  appeared calm and composed during the
afternoon, also  said the officers behaved themselves while in his
school. Students still mourn Cody, he said, and he  himself did some
soul-searching after the incident.

"He was a wonderful, nice kid," Kress said, adding that  the school
bears no ill will toward the family. "I miss  him being here."

Cody's death may have been impossible to predict and  even harder to
avoid. Pat Gaskin, chairwoman of the  South Central Idaho Suicide
Prevention Action Network,  said suicide is one of the hardest things
to predict.  As a teenage male, Cody was in one of the most at-risk
groups. But that and other risk factors such as ADD,  drug use and
stress don't necessarily add up to  suicide.

Gaskin compared it to cancer.

"A lot of people don't have the risk factors and get  cancer," she
said. "A lot of people have the risk  factors and don't get cancer."

The family seems to have accepted that their legal  options have run
out. Now, Myrna said, they just want  to alert other Idahoans before
their families suffer  through the same pointless fight.

The incident further strained an already-struggling  family, she said.
Though Mark Cornelison was released  several months after Cody's
death, he led Twin Falls  County sheriff's deputies on a drunken car
chase down  U.S. Highway 93 in March 2007. He's now serving at  least
five years in the Idaho Correctional Center in  Boise. Cody's mother,
Trisa, still lives in Twin Falls.  Both of the couple's other children
are struggling,  Myrna said, and one is in rehab for alcohol abuse.

"We're just all messed up now," Myrna said.

And other families with complaints about public  agencies could have a
similarly hard time navigating  the legal system. The window for
filing a tort claim,  she said, is six months. For a mourning family
that  then has to find a lawyer, that can be a shorter than  it
sounds, she said.

"I just don't want this to happen to anybody anymore."
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MAP posted-by: Derek