Student’s behavior questioned

MOBILE, Ala. – Gil Collar was a guy everybody wanted to be around in high school, friends said: The girls liked his good looks, even his opponents on the wrestling mat became buddies, and adults knew him as courteous and kind.

The nude 18-year-old who was shot to death by a police officer on the University of South Alabama campus wasn’t the young man they knew. School officials said the slightly built freshman took a “fighting stance” and chased the officer, though Collar’s mother said she was told he never touched the officer. Acquaintances said he appeared to be intoxicated, because of alcohol or something else, as he took his clothes off, ran through the streets, screamed obscenities and claimed he was on a “spiritual quest” in the moments before he was killed.

The case has been handed over to Mobile County authorities and could take weeks to resolve. Meanwhile, friends and relatives are trying to figure out what could have happened to the quiet kid who showed so much promise.

“It’s completely opposite of the way he was,” said South Alabama student Chandler Wescovich, who became friends with Collar during his short time on campus.

His mother, Bonnie Smith Collar, said she was told by someone involved in the investigation that surveillance video shows Collar never touched the officer. School officials with access to that video have said nothing to indicate Collar was armed.

The university said the officer heard a bang on a window at campus police headquarters and went outside to investigate. The officer tried to retreat numerous times to defuse the situation before opening fire, the university said in a news release.