July 9, 2003

Statement by the Rev. Dr. James D. Peters Jr., pastor, New Hope Baptist Church, and vice-president for community affairs for the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance:

We have come here today to express our grief over the senseless death of 15-year-old Paul Childs.

We have not come to mourn. That has gripped us for the past few days and it will continue for a long time to come. We will memorialize this young man far beyond the time when summer turns into autumn and then into winter. The changing of seasons will not change our disgust and disappointment, our pain and our anguish.

We have cried out too long for justice, but our voices are not weary, and we will not be silent in light of the hypocrisy of our criminal justice system, which allows things like the killing of this young man to take place right in the middle of this progressive city.

It would be easy for us to target the entire police force as violent, bigoted, uncaring foot soldiers of a genocidal society. But we know better. Most of the members of our Denver Police Department have the spirit of sacrifice found in the New York Police Department when the horrors of September 11, 2001, rained down on New York. Many of them would risk and give their lives to serve and protect us. We know that. So our complaint is not against all of them.

But on this day we point to one, James Turney, who pulled the trigger which snuffed out this young life. He is a disgrace to the uniform of a police officer. He would be more at home in the white sheets of the Ku Klux Klan. It was not enough to kill one young, disabled black man a year ago. He felt he needed another notch on his belt, so he killed another one last Saturday.

We don't want his kind in our community. We don't want his kind in our city. And we definitely don't want his kind on our police force.

While we do not blame the entire police force for one rotten egg, we do question the criminal justice system, not only in Denver but across the nation. It seems almost impossible for district attorneys and prosecutors to bring justice to a bad, lawbreaking police officer when they must work so closely with each other.

But to allow this man to give a bad name to decency, to allow this criminal cop to shoot down a special-needs child who was not violent but in need of help, to allow this bloodthirsty animal to kill this child who loved and trusted the police and considered them to be his friends - this is too much.

We have read the regulations and know that probably the officials in our city cannot or will not be able to prosecute this vagabond child-killer because he was at the right number of feet from the victim that the law allows.

But we can work with our court systems, our new mayor, our city council, our state attorney general and our federal government to find a way to end this slaughter. When SWAT teams go after hardened criminals, they often talk - sometimes for hours - first, and shoot later. There are ways to use something less than lethal force.

We urge our community not to fight back with violent responses to the actions of this one dreary officer. That is what some people want. Let us be too intelligent, too God-fearing and too moral to stoop to the low levels of physical violence and corroding hatred.

We will cry if we must, march if we decide to, but we will not fight him and those who think like him with carnal weapons - but we will fight.

As the Bible says, our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Little Paul is gone. But we will not forget him. And we will not forget the mean man who killed him.

"America, America, God mend thine every flaw.

Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law."

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