Denver Post
500 pack funeral for slain teenager
City leaders, friends, kin mourn boy shot by officer
Sunday, July 13, 2003 - The mighty and the powerless packed a small Denver church Saturday to mark the passing of a teenager whose death has galvanized public debate over police use of deadly force.
Paul Childs, a mentally handicapped youth, was memorialized and buried a week after being shot by a Denver policeman responding to a call that he was threatening his mother with a knife. His family denies they felt threatened, although his sister called 911. In death, Childs accomplished more than many could in life, the Rev. Paul Martin told some 500 people attending the funeral for the 15-year-old. Childs, the minister said, had on this day brought Christians, Muslims and Jews and people of all races and standing into the same pews at Macedonia Baptist Church. Paul Childs jarred a community out of its complacency, Martin said. "A little child shall lead," he said, quoting Scripture. Martin said he hasn't seen anyone pull the community together like this in years. Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, Mayor-elect John Hickenlooper, ministers and prominent attorney Johnnie Cochran sat amid Childs' distraught family members and friends in the church, where Childs' grandmother worshiped. "I know something about justice. We need justice in this case," Cochran said. He also made a promise to the Childs family: There should be no other funerals like Paul's. "That would be a fitting tribute to a life cut so short." Webb went to the pulpit to promise a quick and public investigation of the shooting that has angered the black community and civil libertarians. "Do we need to review what happened? Yes. Do we need to do it soon? Yes. Do we need to do it openly? Yes," Webb said. Wilma Webb also spoke, arching an eyebrow at Denver police conduct. "We know that law is wrong," she said, referring to a Colorado law that gives police considerable discretion to use deadly force when they feel threatened. "We need to stand behind Johnnie Cochran. What happened to Paul shouldn't happen again." Among those attending were Denver City Council members Allegra "Happy" Haynes and Elbra Wedgeworth, state Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, members of the disabled community, teachers, Nation of Islam minister Gerald Muhammad and community activist Alvertis Simmons. Some showed up in five-piece suits, others in jeans and T-shirts. There were no uniformed police officers present.
In a cheery videotape, a polished program and emotion-choked words, Childs' relatives painted him as a boy with limitless patience who greeted the world with outstretched arms to receive the hugs he thought were his due.
Lawyer Johnnie Cochran speaks to those gathered Saturday for Paul Childs’ funeral.
He had been rewarded for that good-natured spirit with most-popular-student honors at Smith Elementary.
"I was jealous," said his older sister, Ashley Childs. "But I was proud of him."
She paused, her voice faltering. Support came from within the church: "It's all right, baby," murmured one. "Take your time," encouraged another.
"He was my baby brother, and now I will have no one to fuss and fight with," Ashley Childs continued. "I'm so happy he finally made it home. Rest in peace."
Images of Paul Childs' wide grin flashed on the screen, from birth, as a gap-toothed youth, and suave in a suit and tie, a young man with an eye for an older woman. His high school prom date, 20-year-old Mikelle Learned, with whom he exchanged "I love you's," squirmed in her wheelchair and squealed with delight when the couple's image filled the screen.
Into his casket his mother, Helen Childs, and father, Paul Childs, each put a single long-stemmed red rose.
Despite the sophisticated white blazer, crisp red shirt and perfectly styled hair, the boy lying in the white casket was, after all, a boy. Another well-wisher tucked a pack of Crayolas near his left hand.
Even before the church was filled with bright sprays of white carnations and red roses - the colors at East High, where Childs was a special-education student - it began to sag with the weight of remorse.
Each visitor slowly approached the casket, hat and sometimes heart in hand. They stepped away from their lives wearing whatever the day had earlier demanded: a cheerleader's outfit, a karate uniform with yellow belt, a cook's well-used apron.
Before the funeral for his childhood friend, Quent Scaggs sat atop a church sign reading Psalm 119. The verses speaking of the "wickedness trying to destroy me" eased some of the 16-year-old's anger about losing his friend.
"He just wasn't a harmful person," Scaggs said softly, looking down, fingering a black beaded cross around his neck. "This has been an education for me. An education that you absolutely don't live forever."
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| Family and friends of Paul Childs, the developmentally disabled teen shot by a Denver police officer July 5, carry his casket from Macedonia Baptist Church on Saturday. |
One of Childs' closest friends, a wispy first mustache darkening his lip, collapsed in sobs during and after the ceremony. His shop teacher, neighbors and friends agreed: Childs was the friendliest and gentlest person they ever knew.
"I just remember Paul would just walk right into my house. He wouldn't knock, he would just walk right in, and he would say hi," said CeArrah Spanks, a 15-year-old who knew Childs at Smiley Middle School and at East.
"When I met Paul, we were joking with him, and he was chasing me. He chased me for a long, long time. When he finally caught me, he just hugged me and he gave me a kiss."
Childs' maternal uncle, Michael Thompson, treated to unexpected visits from Childs in life, turned to the pages of Webster's dictionary to fully explain his nephew's greatest accomplishments after death. Thompson looked up the meaning of love, patience and kindness.
"Maybe we can find patience in our own lives," he said. "Maybe, like Paul, we need to be more friendly. ... If we do that, our world would be a better place."
But searing newspaper headlines, raw emotions and unanswered questions for police weren't far from the minds of those gathered.
"We believe this was a murder," said the Nation of Islam's Muhammad before the ceremony. "The tension is high right now because in the last year there have been five black men that have been killed (by police). I think this is the straw that may have broken the camel's back."
But from the pulpit came praise for restraint.
"If ever there was a time, if ever there were a reason, for uncool heads to prevail, this would be the time," said the Rev. Reginald Holmes, president of the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance. "But we are a peaceable people. We seek justice. ... We feel anger because we feel there is no sense of justice."
He addressed Helen Childs, distraught and surrounded by people trying to comfort her.
"In birth, he was your son," said Holmes, leaning toward her. "In death, he has become the son of the city."
Denver Post staff writer Diedtra Henderson may be reached at dhenderson@denverpost.com or at 303-820-1910.