=> vox populi ©

..
"=> Vox Populi ©" <vox@popu.li>

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=> vox populi ©

**** with knife killed by cops

Family says mentally disabled youth posed no threat

By Marcos Mocine-McQueen
The Denver Post

Sunday, July 06, 2003 - A mentally disabled 15-year-old boy who was armed with a
knife was fatally shot by a Denver police officer Saturday.

A Denver Police Department spokesman said the officer felt threatened when the
boy wouldn't put the knife down. The boy's mother said her son was not a threat
to anyone and should not have been shot.

Paul Childs was preparing to enter his sophomore year at East High School. He
was known around the neighborhood as a tall, friendly young man who often
wandered aimlessly, sometimes ending up as far away as Boulder. He had not had
an easy childhood - he suffered from grand mal seizures and a number of
developmental and learning disabilities. He had been released from the hospital
on Tuesday after being treated for a seizure.

About 1:10 p.m. Saturday, police received a call that Childs was threatening his
mother, Helen, with a knife, according to Detective John White, the police
spokesman.

Police and family members who witnessed the shooting agreed that Paul came to
the door holding a knife. Officers ordered him to drop it. Family members say
the order was given twice. Then shots were fired - four, according to Helen
Childs. Her wounded son was taken to Denver Health Medical Center, where he died
hours after the shooting.

Paul Childs did not utter any last words that his mom knows of. In fact, he
didn't speak any words at all on the day he died, Helen Childs said. He awoke in
the same off-kilter mood he had been in when he "tore his room apart" before
falling asleep Friday night, she said.


"We didn't know if he was mad or just in a phase," Helen Childs said in an
interview hours after she found out her son had died.
When he awoke Saturday he dressed and spent the morning hanging around the
house. When Helen Childs tried to coax him into cleaning the room he had messed
up, Paul Childs looked at her but said nothing and did not clean the room.

After noon, several people relaxed in the family living room. Paul's older
sister, Ashley Childs, 16, and Lakisha Newell, a family friend who came by to
pick up her two young children, chatted. Helen Childs sat at the end of the
gray, overstuffed couch that sits by the house's front door. Her son came over
and sat on the arm of the couch next to her.

Helen Childs leaned over and laid her head on her son's shoulder. "You know I
love you, right?" Helen Childs recalled telling him.
Paul still said nothing but gently covered his mother's mouth with his hand. The
touch was so gentle that Helen Childs smiled.
"What, are you going to kill me now?" she asked him, joking.

Paul Childs went into the kitchen where he rustled around - making lunch, his
family presumed. But when he walked out, he was carrying a knife.

"I didn't feel he was a threat," Helen Childs said later. "None of us felt
threatened. Lakisha said, 'Oh my god, Paul's got a knife,' but it was a joke. We
weren't scared. We all thought it was a joke."

Lakisha called the police, Helen Childs said, not because they were scared but
because the police had a good rapport with Paul Childs. When he wandered off to
different destinations, he would usually call the police, who would take him
home.

"He thought the police were his friends," the mother said. "A lot of the
officers knew him and he thought they liked him because they would always bring
him home."

White said he did not know if any of the officers involved Saturday had dealt
with Paul Childs in the past.
Everyone remained in the house with the television on and waited for the police,
Helen Childs said.
"We didn't call because we were scared," she said. "We just wanted them to talk
to him."

But the the dispatchers who answered the call were told that Paul was
"threatening" his mother with a knife and that was what the officers were told,
White said.

When the police arrived, Helen Childs went to the porch to tell them what was
happening. She says she was immediately grabbed by the arm and pulled away from
the door.

One officer crossed the lawn and climbed over a rail onto the family's porch. He
stood only feet away from the doorway where Paul now stood, clutching the knife
with both hands in front of his face.

They ordered him to drop the knife and the officer on the porch called for a
Tazer gun to be used to disable the boy, according to Helen Childs. Moments
later, one officer fired his gun.

As word of the shooting began to spread and the yellow crime scene tape came
down, friends and family gathered at the family home later in the day. Most said
they did not believe Paul understood the officer's orders.

Ramona Lopez, a family friend, said that Paul often did not understand orders at
first.

"I told him things three times sometimes before it clicked in," Lopez said.

Police were investigating the cir***stances surrounding the shooting, but would
not comment on details.

"We don't want to lose sight of the fact that this young man was threatening
with the knife," White said. "The officer felt threatened."
"This was a very unfortunate incident," White said. "The officer made the
decision that he made based on his training."

Denver police are taught that if someone armed with a knife is within 21 feet of
the officer, the officer can shoot, White said.

"At 21 feet a suspect could get to an officer and inflict serious bodily injury
and possibly death before a officer could draw and fire his gun," White said.

"We shoot to stop the threat," White said.

Denver officers are not obliged to use less-lethal force against a person who is
brandishing potentially lethal force, such as a knife, White said.

"It's taken case by case and scenario by scenario," White said. "Every situation
is independent and officers have to use their judgment."
Helen Childs and the other witnesses were taken to the police station to be
interviewed and give statements. They estimated they spent two hours there.

When they finished, she went to the hospital, where she still expected to greet
her son, who was alive when taken away by ambulance. When she arrived, she was
told he was dead. She was angered that her son died without family while his
mother and sister were being interviewed by police.

White would not comment on the timing of the interviews.

"In any officer-involved shooting it is vitally important that we complete a
very thorough investigation, and part of that investigation process is speaking
to all of the people who are witnesses or have first-hand knowledge of the
facts," White said.

"What's really unfortunate is that this 15-year-old kid is gone now," White
said.


RECENT FATAL POLICE SHOOTINGS IN DENVER

April 18, 2003: Denver police shoot and kill Shaun Gilman, 20, in downtown
Denver after he rams a patrol car and leads them on a brief chase. Officers said
Gilman pointed a crossbow at them just before they shot him.

April 15, 2003: Lyle Eugene Larsen, 52, is shot twice in the chest and dies in
the front yard of his duplex after threatening an officer and his partner with a
knife. Denver police were responding to a call saying Larsen was suicidal.

March 14, 2003: Christopher Jones is killed inside his northwest Denver home
after lunging at officers with a knife. Jones' friend had called police earlier
in the night and said Jones was suicidal.

March 7, 2003: Luis Almeida-Ponce is killed at 1:45 a.m. by three Denver police
officers in the parking lot of Tequila Club, 5115 Federal Blvd. The officers
opened fire after he pointed a gun at them, police said.

Nov. 7, 2002: Denver police officer Kurt Peterson is shot in the cheek by
Anthony Jefferson during a traffic stop on Bruce Randolph Avenue near Colorado
Boulevard. Jefferson is shot and killed by officer John Super.

Jan. 30, 2002: Gregory Smith is killed by Sgt. Robert Silvas and officer Jim
Turney at his mother's northeast Denver home. Smith had pulled a knife on
officers, who were called to the house after he and his mother had argued.

lord valve

Why'd the FAMILY call the cops, then?

Gosh, nice kid.


Hmmm...sounds like a homicidal maniac, given that info.

How 'bout dat.

How 'bout dat, too.


Another dangerous piece of shit off the streets. Thanks, officers.


Gosh - y'think folks'd figure out that it ain't a good idea to brandish weapons at the police.

Another dangerous piece of shit off the streets. Thanks, officers.


Nice shootin', officer. That's one that won't be robbing my store, eh?


Looks good to me. Keep up the good work, officers, andthanks from all the
LAW-ABIDING citizens of Denver.

Lord Valve
American

blackwater

If he "wasn't a threat" then he wouldn't have been
waving that knife around - and the kops don't have
time to administer a battery of IQ tests to each
guy with a blade they encounter.

That said, it's a real shame that current tort practice
makes it safer for cops to kill a suspect than shoot-
to-disable. A slug in the perps knife-arm would have
ended this situation with minimal risk and damage ...
but sure as hell the cops would be sued for injuring
the guy. Waving a knife at the cops ? Who cares ?
The mean old officers hurt poor widdle Timmy sitting
beside me here dear jurors ... give the lad his 10
million dollar reward !!!

Corpses can't appear in court and make sad faces at
the jury. Therefore, it's shoot-to-kill. This is a
direct consequence of the 'liberal' notion of
perpetrator-as-victim.

bakunin

Did you know him? Didn't think so.


He was suicidal, suicide by cop is common.


yeah real good job ociffers.

Jim

on

argued.

Life is cheap over in your version of America, is it not?

I imagine you support sending the cannon-fodder to Iraq as well.

=> vox populi ©

Naive quasi-literate minorities brainwashed into the big lie
that cops are "there to help" ....

So would any 6 yr old running with a pair of scissors, in your
pathetic fearful world ...

Tell you what sparky, I'll let you have any knife in the world, and let
you stand just 10 feet from me, while I have my automatic weapon drawn
as this retarded-child-murdering cop did, and lets see if you can scratch me
before I cap your ass ... then again bet I could shoot you somewhere
that wouldn't be lethal, by choice, or just snuff your pathetic life on
the spot, then retreat and hid behind some self-serving, arbitrary "21 foot" absurdity.

Gee, next time we need to relieve overcrowding in the Mental Hospitals
and Psycho Wards, all we need to do is send in some cowardly cops
at Dinner time ... then when the cops start screaming incomprehensible
orders to "drop the utensils" to those who, by definition can't comprehend,
the cops can execute each and every one of them who are unfortunate enough
to be 20 feet or less away ... the cops can execute the rest of those who
"refuse orders" as they move around the cafeteria confronting the
screaming/psychotic residents ....

=> vox populi ©

May your children find themselves between the next cowardly cop
and a perceived tort ...

blackwater

Hey ... I didn't MAKE this reality, I just live in it.
'Liberals' made it.

Shoot-to-disable used to be fairly common practice,
until the perps, lawsuit artists and left-wing
politicians all got together.

julian d.

Why is a kid who is mentally disabled attending a regular high school anyway?


He could not understand? Why was he going to a normal high school?

He could not understand? Why was he going to a normal high school?

This kid should have been more closely monitored, perhaps some sort of
facility.
The cops stopped and killed a potential future serial murderer.
The parents were irresponsible in taking care of their son, and
treated him like a normal kid.
The kid needed help before he would endanger himself and others. Too late.


ok..more than good. excellent.

well duh. fantastic.


ok..what's the problem?


Julian's Maxim #57:

Do NOT threaten police officers with a weapon. Do not lunge at them
with a knife, do not shoot them, do not point guns at them. When a
cop tells you to drop whatever it is you're holding, ****ING DO IT
QUICKLY.


Thank you.

michael cargill

Your pathetic attempt at trolling would be hilarious, except that some
people really do think like you.
At which point did I say that mentally disabled deserve to get executed? I
didn't even mention disabled people in my final sentence, so your accusation
is ridiculous.


--
Craftily Guffed by Michael Cargill
----------------------------------
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