LONGWOOD, Fla. -- A suicidal eighth-grader who briefly took another child hostage before being shot on a school campus by a sheriff's SWAT team member Friday was holding a modified pellet gun, officials said Friday.

Investigators said students at Milwee Middle School on 1341 South Ronald Regan Blvd., near Longwood, Fla., noticed what appeared to be a Beretta gun in a backpack of a 15-year-old student at about 9:30 a.m. Friday.

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The two students confronted the boy and a fight broke out, officers said. The two students then told a resource officer.

When the officer confronted the boy about the gun, he fled and was eventually cornered near a bathroom on campus.

"During the situation the student said he was going to kill himself or die, one way or another," Seminole County Don Eslinger said. "Deputies attempted to establish dialog. He raised a firearm and lethal force was used by the sheriff's office. "He was suicidal."

Eslinger said that the pellet gun was modified to look like a real gun and that the deputy who cornered the boy decided to shoot after the student raised the gun in his direction.

The student was transported to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. The boy was on advanced life support Friday at 4 p.m., Eslinger said.

Students, teachers and school staff members were evacuated after the shooting, deputies said.

Eslinger said he was not sure of the boy's motive.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating.

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