Denver Post
Teen with knife killed by cops
Sunday, July 06, 2003 - A mentally disabled 15-year-old boy who was armed with a knife was fatally shot by a Denver police officer Saturday.
A Denver Police Department spokesman said the officer felt threatened when the boy wouldn't put the knife down. The boy's mother said her son was not a threat to anyone and should not have been shot. Paul Childs was preparing to enter his sophomore year at East High School. He was known around the neighborhood as a tall, friendly young man who often wandered aimlessly, sometimes ending up as far away as Boulder. He had not had an easy childhood - he suffered from grand mal seizures and a number of developmental and learning disabilities. He had been released from the hospital on Tuesday after being treated for a seizure. About 1:10 p.m. Saturday, police received a call that Childs was threatening his mother, Helen, with a knife, according to Detective John White, the police spokesman. Police and family members who witnessed the shooting agreed that Paul came to the door holding a knife. Officers ordered him to drop it. Family members say the order was given twice. Then shots were fired - four, according to Helen Childs. Her wounded son was taken to Denver Health Medical Center, where he died hours after the shooting. Paul Childs did not utter any last words that his mom knows of. In fact, he didn't speak any words at all on the day he died, Helen Childs said. He awoke in the same off-kilter mood he had been in when he "tore his room apart" before falling asleep Friday night, she said.
April 18, 2003: Denver police shoot and kill Shaun Gilman, 20, in downtown Denver after he rams a patrol car and leads them on a brief chase. Officers said Gilman pointed a crossbow at them just before they shot him. April 15, 2003: Lyle Eugene Larsen, 52, is shot twice in the chest and dies in the front yard of his duplex after threatening an officer and his partner with a knife. Denver police were responding to a call saying Larsen was suicidal. March 14, 2003: Christopher Jones is killed inside his northwest Denver home after lunging at officers with a knife. Jones' friend had called police earlier in the night and said Jones was suicidal. March 7, 2003: Luis Almeida-Ponce is killed at 1:45 a.m. by three Denver police officers in the parking lot of Tequila Club, 5115 Federal Blvd. The officers opened fire after he pointed a gun at them, police said. Nov. 7, 2002: Denver police officer Kurt Peterson is shot in the cheek by Anthony Jefferson during a traffic stop on Bruce Randolph Avenue near Colorado Boulevard. Jefferson is shot and killed by officer John Super. Jan. 30, 2002: Gregory Smith is killed by Sgt. Robert Silvas and officer Jim Turney at his mother's northeast Denver home. Smith had pulled a knife on officers, who were called to the house after he and his mother had argued. When he awoke Saturday he dressed and spent the morning hanging around the house. When Helen Childs tried to coax him into cleaning the room he had messed up, Paul Childs looked at her but said nothing and did not clean the room. After noon, several people relaxed in the family living room. Paul's older sister, Ashley Childs, 16, and Lakisha Newell, a family friend who came by to pick up her two young children, chatted. Helen Childs sat at the end of the gray, overstuffed couch that sits by the house's front door. Her son came over and sat on the arm of the couch next to her. Helen Childs leaned over and laid her head on her son's shoulder. "You know I love you, right?" Helen Childs recalled telling him. Paul still said nothing but gently covered his mother's mouth with his hand. The touch was so gentle that Helen Childs smiled. "What, are you going to kill me now?" she asked him, joking. Paul Childs went into the kitchen where he rustled around - making lunch, his family presumed. But when he walked out, he was carrying a knife. "I didn't feel he was a threat," Helen Childs said later. "None of us felt threatened. Lakisha said, 'Oh my god, Paul's got a knife,' but it was a joke. We weren't scared. We all thought it was a joke." Lakisha called the police, Helen Childs said, not because they were scared but because the police had a good rapport with Paul Childs. When he wandered off to different destinations, he would usually call the police, who would take him home. "He thought the police were his friends," the mother said. "A lot of the officers knew him and he thought they liked him because they would always bring him home." White said he did not know if any of the officers involved Saturday had dealt with Paul Childs in the past. Everyone remained in the house with the television on and waited for the police, Helen Childs said. "We didn't call because we were scared," she said. "We just wanted them to talk to him." But the the dispatchers who answered the call were told that Paul was "threatening" his mother with a knife and that was what the officers were told, White said. When the police arrived, Helen Childs went to the porch to tell them what was happening. She says she was immediately grabbed by the arm and pulled away from the door. One officer crossed the lawn and climbed over a rail onto the family's porch. He stood only feet away from the doorway where Paul now stood, clutching the knife with both hands in front of his face. They ordered him to drop the knife and the officer on the porch called for a Tazer gun to be used to disable the boy, according to Helen Childs. Moments later, one officer fired his gun. As word of the shooting began to spread and the yellow crime scene tape came down, friends and family gathered at the family home later in the day. Most said they did not believe Paul understood the officer's orders. Ramona Lopez, a family friend, said that Paul often did not understand orders at first. "I told him things three times sometimes before it clicked in," Lopez said. Police were investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting, but would not comment on details. "We don't want to lose sight of the fact that this young man was threatening with the knife," White said. "The officer felt threatened." "This was a very unfortunate incident," White said. "The officer made the decision that he made based on his training." Denver police are taught that if someone armed with a knife is within 21 feet of the officer, the officer can shoot, White said. "At 21 feet a suspect could get to an officer and inflict serious bodily injury and possibly death before a officer could draw and fire his gun," White said. "We shoot to stop the threat," White said. Denver officers are not obliged to use less-lethal force against a person who is brandishing potentially lethal force, such as a knife, White said. "It's taken case by case and scenario by scenario," White said. "Every situation is independent and officers have to use their judgment." Helen Childs and the other witnesses were taken to the police station to be interviewed and give statements. They estimated they spent two hours there. When they finished, she went to the hospital, where she still expected to greet her son, who was alive when taken away by ambulance. When she arrived, she was told he was dead. She was angered that her son died without family while his mother and sister were being interviewed by police. White would not comment on the timing of the interviews. "In any officer-involved shooting it is vitally important that we complete a very thorough investigation, and part of that investigation process is speaking to all of the people who are witnesses or have first-hand knowledge of the facts," White said. "What's really unfortunate is that this 15-year-old kid is gone now," White said. Veronica Torrejon of The Denver Post contributed to this report. |