The Denver Post
Kin stung but not surprised
Friday, January 14, 2005 -
Ashley Childs sits crushed down in a recliner in a house next door to the one she lived in with her little brother Paul - the home where she watched Denver police officer James Turney shoot him to death July 5, 2003.
Ashley, 17, only 10 months older than Paul, thinks of her loss daily. Thursday afternoon, Ashley learned that a hearing officer with the Denver Civil Service Commission essentially overturned Turney's 10-month suspension for the shooting. For Ashley, the decision is both shocking and not shocking. "I expected it," she says. Turney shot the developmentally disabled 15-year-old because he was holding a kitchen knife and stepping toward the officers called to the scene. Ashley saw it happen. It baffled her. Then she learned that the Police Department kept Turney on, despite a similar killing in his past. And there have been the other fatal shootings since her brother's death. "(Turney) should face the death penalty," Ashley says. "If my brother would have been white, or this had happened in Boulder, James Turney wouldn't have been able to appeal. I think he would have been in jail," Ashley says. "I don't feel that justice has been served," she says. "There needs to be a lot of changes in the system." Her mother, Helen Childs, calls. They discuss the news, now on the television. "It don't make sense," Helen says. "It upsets me." "I've been watching all these cops kill people and getting away with it," Helen says. "If you kill someone, you should face the consequences and not just get away with it. "It's wrong," Helen says. "It's totally wrong." Ashley considers the ruling. Because one reasonably could expect other officers operating under the department's use-of-force policy at the time to have acted as Turney did, the hearing officer found, Turney should not be punished excessively. "The judge is wrong because there were three other officers, and two of them had Tasers," Ashley says. "They evidently didn't feel threatened enough." Ashley gets in her car and heads for the new home of the Childs family in Montbello. The family celebrated its first Christmas here last month, just weeks after moving in. Their $1.325 million settlement with the city of Denver paid for the home and many of its furnishings. Helen sits with Ashley at the dining room table, before a painting a friend made of Ashley with Paul as an angel standing behind her, touching her heart. Ashley's 1-year-old son, Aajaiveon Nash Hall, squirms in her lap. His middle name is that of Paul's. Helen says she feels as if she's reliving July 3, 2003. The new house, the new things, it's all a cold comfort. "If I could just give all this up and move back to my house (in North Park Hill) and have Paul and my daughter," she says, "I would give all this up." Helen and Ashley say they hope the city appeals the decision. But they're weary of the process. "I don't know what I'll do," Helen says. "I don't know." Staff writer Chuck Plunkett can be reached at 303-820-1333 or cplunkett@denverpost.com .
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