The killing of a 14-year-old boy by a Baltimore police officer is a terrible tragedy and a horrible loss for all who knew the youth, Kevin Cooper of Southwest Baltimore. But once emotions have cooled, facts show that the officer involved was likely justified in his action.
On paper it doesn?t even read right ? a cop pulls a gun on a 14-year-old brandishing a broom handle, and kills him.
There?s no way that could be protocol right?
Wrong, says a police officer familiar with the case.
Speaking under condition of anonymity (for fear of disciplinary action for speaking to the press), the officer said, “We have to be able to do our job, and sometimes that job involves killing those assailants who have intent to kill police officers.”
The officer asked me: “Do you know why the boy had a broom handle? It?s because he hit the officer so hard over his head with the broom that it broke in half, and this broom was pretty thick.”
The officer said the facts show that the youth?s next attack with the splintery broom handle was a “death stab” toward the officer?s heart.
It was then that the officer fired the shot that killed Copper, according to the officer I spoke with.
“It really comes down to what the officer reasonably believed,” says Fox legal analyst Jack Burkman.
“If the officer thought there was a threat of serious bodily harm, then he is justified in using deadly force.”
Cooper?s attorney A. Dwight Petit has challenged this version of events, andis sure to provide a spirited fight for the Cooper family in court despite the facts that have come out so far.
“That?s why our legal system works,” said Burkman, “because the courts allow opposing arguments to be made, and sometimes additional facts can come out in the trial which rebut the original ones; though in this case I think the officer did the right thing.”
But whether or not the police are justified in this case, there is concern that some in the community are losing faith in the force.
An Examiner report that a man was arrested for ?stealing? his own car ? and that police sold the car before the man even had a trial ? is just one in a chain of recent embarrassments for the police department.
Reports of alleged police misconduct have abounded of late.
These include two cases of women accusing police of sexually assaulting them inside the police station, one city councilman accusing police of following an “illegal” arrest policy, and an officer circulating a racially-tinged e-mail around the department.
Stories like these should serve as a wakeup call for the police that it may be time to re-examine protocols within the department, and at the same time, to work harder to reach out to the community that it serves.
For it is in difficult situations like the killing of Cooper that the police need civic support more than ever, and can least afford further erosions of public confidence.
Tom Moore hosts the AES Tom Moore Show Saturdays from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. on AM 680 WCBM. He earned a juris doctor in 2006 from the University of Baltimore. His Web site is www.tommooreradio.com.
