Denver Post

Cop's account of shooting raises doubts
By Jim Spencer
Denver Post Columnist

Thursday, August 14, 2003 - A Denver policeman's interview with investigators after he killed a 15-year-old mentally challenged kid makes two things clear.

First, officer James Turney had options other than shooting Paul Childs.

Second, investigators' leading questions suggest that protecting Turney sometimes mattered as much as probing for facts.

Begin with what Turney was allowed to do. He could have stepped back from Childs, who clutched a knife to his chest and walked toward Turney when the officer fired.

According to a transcript obtained by The Denver Post, Turney told Lt. Jim Haney and Assistant District Attorney Doug Jackson that he wasn't required to step back as Childs approached him.

That's right. No police policy made Turney give ground. Common sense demanded it.

Police may retreat in such situations. It is a split-second judgment based on all the circumstances.

"We back out of situations frequently, and they become tactical," said Denver police Cmdr. Mike O'Neill. Retreating is OK, "as long as you're not putting innocent lives in danger."

That's a standard that can certainly be applied here.

Turney and another officer ordered everyone inside Childs' home to leave. They did. The teenager was alone in his house.

Childs was killed 5 to 7 feet from Turney. That's well within the 21-foot danger zone that allows police to fire at knife-wielding suspects. But distance doesn't automatically compel gunshots.

"They're not trained to apply force within 21 feet," O'Neill said. "They are trained to consider force."

The 21-foot rule was established to protect officers who do not have their weapons ready. As Childs stepped into view, Turney said, he already held his pistol in two hands and aimed it at the center of the boy's chest.

Turney's decision to shoot Childs wasn't split-second, but it was close. Turney said just three or four seconds elapsed between the moment he first saw Childs and the moment he shot him. In the interim, Turney said, Childs, who was developmentally delayed and suffered from seizures, never lunged at or threatened him. Childs wouldn't drop his knife, Turney said, and he wouldn't stop walking toward Turney.

If this constitutes a clean shoot, Denver police procedures make it far too easy to take a life.

If this doesn't add up to a proper police killing, Turney needs to be charged with a crime.

Looking at the transcript, you wonder how that could happen.

Haney and Jackson led Turney through a series of questions that sometimes seemed designed to keep Turney from prosecution.

At a couple of junctures, Haney actually put the right words in Turney's mouth.

"Where you're at, is there any way that you could've, uh, could you retreat at that point?" Haney asked of Turney's position on the porch.

"I was in an elevated position with one foot on an' one foot off," Turney answered. "With my gun drawn, I didn't ... I felt like if I retreated, I could've, um, ..."

"Fallen?" Haney suggested.

At another point, Haney asked, "An' you feel, because o' the distance an' the way he was a carrying the knife, you felt in danger?"

"Yes, sir," Turney answered.

"And that possibly officer Geddes (another policeman at the scene) was also in danger?"

"Yes, sir."

The transcript includes other leading questions. Together, they cry for an examination of this case by investigators with no vested interest in the outcome.

With Haney's coaching, Turney defended his decision not to retreat by saying he was afraid he would trip.

The move from the porch to the walkway is like stepping from a curb to the street.

Turney also had three officers standing near him, including one with a nonlethal Taser stun gun and one trained in crisis intervention.

A simple step backward would have provided a chance to end the confrontation without tragedy.

Hindsight is always 20-20. Still, too much here continues to make too little sense.

For instance, Turney said he had taken Childs home a month and a half before he killed the boy. At that time, Turney said, he was told that Childs had "mental problems."

Maybe the policeman couldn't reasonably be expected to remember that when he responded to a 911 call to Childs' home July 11.

Maybe he forgot that the house was empty except for Childs when he pulled the trigger.

Maybe he drew a blank on the fact that he had nonlethal backup.

Maybe he worried about losing his balance stepping from the porch.

Maybe a lot of things happened.

But when the inquisition on the transcript ends, one question lingers:

Did a disabled teenager have to die?

Jim Spencer's column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in The Denver Post. Contact him at jspencer@denverpost.com . Or call 303-820-1771.