Longwood, Fla. ? An eighth-grader was shot and wounded by a SWAT team officer in a school bathroom Friday after he pulled out a pellet gun that resembled a real weapon and later raised it at a deputy, authorities said.

Sheriff Don Eslinger said the 15-year-old boy brought the gun to Milwee Middle School in his backpack. Eslinger said two students saw it and one persuaded the other to report it, causing a scuffle.

The alleged gunman ordered one of the students into a closet, dimmed the lights and ran from the classroom. He then went around the campus carrying the weapon, Eslinger said. Deputies eventually isolated him in a rest room, and the school was evacuated.

Eslinger said negotiators tried unsuccessfully to start a dialogue with the boy, identified as Christopher David Penley.

When the boy raised the gun at a deputy, he shot the youth, the sheriff said.

Christopher was taken to a hospital, where he was on “advanced life support,” the sheriff said.

“He was suicidal,” Eslinger said. “During this standoff, and during the chase, the student said he was going to kill himself or die.”

No one else was injured. The sheriff’s office confirmed later that the weapon was a pellet gun fashioned to look like a 9 mm handgun. The tip of the gun had been painted black, covering brightly colored markings that would have indicated it was nonlethal.

Classes were canceled for the rest of the day, and frantic parents arrived to pick up their children from the 1,100-student public school in suburban Orlando.

Luna Rodriguez, an eighth-grader at Milwee Middle School in Longwood, Fla., hugs her mother after she and other students at the school were evacuated. A member of the sheriff's SWAT team shot an eighth-grade boy who appeared to be carrying a handgun Friday at the school, authorities said.

Kelly Swofford, a neighbor whose 11-year-old son is close friends with Christopher, said he visited their home Thursday night.

Her son, Jeffery, said Christopher talked about wanting to die when the two had breakfast Friday morning. He said Christopher had been fighting with another boy, allegedly over a girl.

Phone calls to Christopher’s home were not answered Friday, and a person who answered the door declined to comment.