Ahmad Terry © News Suspended Denver police officer James Turney enters the Denver Civil Service Commission office Thursday for an appeals hearing. He testified on the shooting of Paul Childs.

Suspended officer says he had no time to plan

By Sarah Langbein, Rocky Mountain News
October 22, 2004

"Everything happened so quickly."

Suspended Denver police officer James Turney repeated that sentence, and variations of it, more than a half-dozen times over three hours during his appeal hearing Thursday.

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It was the first time Turney had spoken publicly about the events leading up to the fatal shooting of Paul Childs and his decision to pull the trigger four times.

Time and distance left him no choice, Turney testified.

"There was not time to formulate a plan," he said of what he described as a "rapidly evolving situation."

Turney's decision to shoot the knife-wielding, developmentally disabled 15-year-old on July 5, 2003, caused public outrage, fueled a police reform effort and led to a lawsuit against the city that was settled for $1.3 million.

Turney was suspended for 10 months without pay for what Manager of Safety Al LaCabe called a "tactical error" before the shooting and for allegedly threatening his ex-mother-in-law.

On Thursday, Turney took the stand for the second day in his effort to overturn that decision.

Turney testified that he was two minutes away from Childs' home when he got the call for help.

The officer said he drove to the home without his lights and siren on, pulled up, got out and immediately drew his gun.

Turney said he got the Childs family out of the house and took a position at the front door.

His left arm propped open a security door, he said, and he was in the "tactical ready position," his gun pointed down in front of his body and his finger off the trigger.

Another officer called to him, "Jim, he's behind the door. He has a knife,' " Turney said. "We ordered the suspect to come out with his hands in the air."

He said Paul Childs came out from behind the door, making a wide arc around it, and stood there facing him. The teenager was holding a knife in his left hand, pointed up at chest level, Turney said.

"Training and instinct kicked in," Turney said, and he focused on Childs' hands, chest and knife.

"Did you develop tunnel vision at that time?" Assistant City Attorney Karla Pierce asked.

"No, I did not," Turney responded.

"That's not a particularly menacing position, is it?" Pierce later asked.

"It could be," Turney responded.

The officer said he gave Childs three to four commands to drop the knife.

"He started to walk towards me," Turney testified. "He took short but deliberate steps. Choppy steps."

At that point, Turney said, he feared for his life.

"I discharged my weapon four times, center mass," he said.

Childs staggered back and fell on his back. Turney got on his radio and told dispatchers that shots had been fired and to send an ambulance, he said.

When asked a series of questions about why he didn't ask more questions, wait for a Taser, slow down the chain of events or close the security door, Turney responded, "Everything happened so quickly."

"There were a lot of things that could have happened that didn't happen," Turney said. "I wanted him to drop the knife so I could take him into custody."

Turney said his reactions were in line with his training.

"I felt I did everything appropriate to the way I was trained," he said.

But Pierce argued that officers are taught to take cover if they feel threatened and to try to defuse the situation.

"Why didn't you back up?" she asked.

"It's not a matter of not being able, but with everything happening so quickly, I didn't feel it was appropriate at the time," Turney said.

Pierce said Turney could have used the door as a barrier between him and Childs, but Turney said it would not have protected him.

Pierce questioned Turney about two prior contacts with Childs, trying to establish that the officer knew the teen's mental capacity.

Turney testified that he recognized Childs when he came around the door but couldn't place him. Two months earlier, the officer responded to a call in which Childs was accused of stealing a bike.

None of that came back to him until he was interviewed hours after the shooting, Turney said.

"Everything happened so quickly," he said.

langbeins@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2536 Staff writer Tillie Fong contributed to this report.

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