How Two Middle School ‘Desperadoes’ Ended Up in a Police Shootout
ENTERPRISE, Fla. — It was getting dark, so sheriff’s deputies used the lights on their rifles to get a better look at the two children who had been holed up in a suburban house for more than an hour.
Fourteen-year-old Nicole Jackson was using a metal baton to smash mirrors, a bathtub and furniture. As the officers closed in, she flipped her middle finger at them and strapped a loaded 12-gauge shotgun around her neck. A 12-year-old boy who had joined her in the escape from a nearby group home grabbed an AK-47 assault rifle.
The Volusia County sheriff’s deputies already knew Nicole well. They had been called repeatedly to her house in nearby Deltona, Fla., responding to complaints that she was...
