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A Brooklyn family and the police have differing views on the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Khiel Coppin on Monday night. Coppin's mother Denise Owens had called 911 because Coppin was acting irrationally. The police released the 911 call, where Owens speaks with a 911 operator and Coppin is yelling in the background; you can read the transcript here and listen here, but here's an excerpt:
Background male voice: "Take that, (expletive). I've got a gun."Police officers who responded to the scene believe he had a gun, claiming that Coppin said he had a gun as well. Coppin, who had been carrying knives earlier, allegedly refused to show his hands, which were under a sweatshirt, so the police fired 20 times, hitting him 10 times. It turned out Coppin, who died at the hospital, was only holding a hairbrush.
911 operator: "Who is that?"
Female caller: "That's supposed to be my son!"
Background male voice: "I've got a (expletive) gun!"
911 operator: "That's your son?"
Female caller: "Got no respect. You know ... I can't deal with this tonight."
Background male voice: "I gotta gun."
911 operator: "He, he say he gotta gun?"
Female caller: "Um, huh ... You, you heard him. I didn't say. You heard it outta his mouth."
911 operator: "He um ... didn't injure you, right?"
Female caller: "But he kept on tonight with this situation here. I'm not sleeping here with this behavior."
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said, "As we know the facts now, this shooting appears to be within department guidelines, as officers fired at someone they reasonably believed to be about to use deadly force against them." He also added, "This was a terrible tragedy for Khiel's family, no question about it. Our condolences go out to his mother and to his family." The police still implied it was a "suicide by cop" pointed to a note found on Coppin, reading, "Those closest 2 death iz closer 2 happiness."
However, a lawyer for Coppin's family, Paul Wooten, said that Denise Owens told the 911 operator (on another call) that her son was not armed, "We know from his mother that when police officers arrived at her front door that she told those officers that he did not have a gun." Wooten also criticized the police commissioner's assessment of the shooting, "Nobody but Houdini himself could have decided that in 24 hours."
Coppin had a history of crime and mental illness. In 2005, he robbed four women at gunpoint; one of his victims, who was walking on the street when he jumped her from behind, told the Daily News, "He jumped on me so hard my friend that was on the phone with me called the cops because she thought I got hit by a car." Coppin was on antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs, but frequently stopped taking them.
Earlier on Monday, his mother asked a crisis team at Interfaith Hospital to help her, but when they came, Coppin had left. Denise Owens told the Daily News' Errol Lewis that she thinks her son would be alive if the psych team had stayed an extra five minutes when Coppin returned. And Coppin's brother Joel told Louis, "The fact that the cops are putting their spin on it is unfortunate. They're putting words in the mouth of my mother, our family. It's almost like they're saying his mother sentenced him to death is how we feel."
The shooting is being investigated by the police department as well the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. Protesters marched outside the 79th Precinct in Brooklyn yesterday, demanding justice. One, Calvin Hunt, said, "Our boys are dying in the streets, its no time for calm. You can't think you can just come and gun us down. We'll be here every day."
The NY Times and Daily News have graphics showing the shooting and events. And this fatal police shooting comes almost a year after Sean Bell, an unarmed man, was killed by police gunfire on the eve of his wedding. Other emotionally disturbed people fatally shot by the police include Gidone Bush back in 1999 (he was holding a claw hammer when he was shot at 12 times and hit three 3 times by four police officers) and Anatoly Dmitriev late last year (he was threatening the police with an ax).
Top photograph of a sign held at a candlelight vigil for Coppin by Gary He/AP; photograph of Coppin's passport photo (the passport expired 2006; it's unclear when the photo was taken)
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If the passport expired in 2006, the photo is likely from 2001. Juvenile passports are good for 5 years.
Why can blacks control and raise their spawns right like normal folks?
Like I said on the old post, I'm convinced this mother should be charged with manslaughter. She knew he didn't really have a gun, but she let the police believe he did. (You can see her try to finesse that in the transcript: "You, you heard him. I didn't say. You heard it outta his mouth.") In the Times coverage today it even sounds like she knew he was suicidal and would feign having a gun with the cops.
If that Korean guy from Staten Island who let his wife drive off a cliff deserved to be charged, this woman does, too.
was Houdini good at assessing police shootings?
A case of "suicide by cop," except in this case, it was an assisted suicide.
" "Um, huh ... You, you heard him. I didn't say. You heard it outta his mouth," the mother coldly says.
Now she's trying to cash in.
That's one cold-hearted bitch.
I gotta say that was the calmest "frantic" call to police I've ever heard.
I can't equate "um-huh" as something a "frantic" person would say.
but all over the news, the press kept mentioning
LISTEN TO THE FRANTIC CALL!
reading that transcript hurtz my hed.
Female caller = dumbass
According to the NYTimes, the mother told the police at the scene that he didn't have a gun, but he kept yelling out that he did. Sounds like the kid had a death wish and the police took him up on it.
Was the Gun, I mean, hairbrush recovered?
I dont understand how the lawyer can say that the 24 hr assessment by the police is wrong. Yet, HIS assessment is right? Man, lawyers suck hard.
the battles between the cops and these communities is just sad...its a vicious cycle...
So, ah, c00n, why can't whites control and raise their spawns like normal folks. Columbine, Oklahoma City, most school shootings, all done by whites. Most of the worst tragedies in American history, and world history, was done by whites. So what is normal folks? STFU! Sadly, you're always trying [keyword: trying] to be funny but show your ignorance because you never state nothing intelligent. I can tell you was one the the guest Gothamist was trying to get rid of. You're always the first to reply to stories like this just to get attention, so that must make you an attention whore!
NYPD released another 911 call yesterday where the mother is AGAIN very ambiguous again about whether her son ACTUALLY has a gun or not. Police had every reason to believe he actually had a gun when they arrived and he yelled "I HAVE A GUN!"
I can't believe that mother. She was clearly partially at fault for this terrible incident.
So where was this kid's mental health treatment? I know there is good support for healthcare here in the city, even for low income residents. I've known a few bipolar friends who got violent, were committed, then got help from the city. Did he not take his meds that day? Did the mother just not have the presence of mind to get the boy help?
As for all of you who are posting saying how outraged and disgusted you are with the mother of Khiel Coppin let me have you know that I am the sister of Khiel Coppin. These posts sicken me, because not only has this website done a horrific job of reporting the facts of this tragedy, but those of you who felt the need to voice your ill feelings for my mother need to realize what happened on that evening. When my mother dialed 911 she did not intend on having a swarm of officers arrive at her door, but the regular two officers. Aware of Khiel's mental illness she also expected the police to arrive with some form of counselor that would be capable of calming my brother. Khiel's mental illness has gone untreated for some time now due to the lack of involvment of the the so called "good support healthcare here in the city". For those of you who believe that my family are trying to cash in is the last thing that we want. My family has enough money to support ourselves. It saddens me to realize that all you people think about is when a family has just suffered a tragedy at the hands of the police who are supposed to be trained in such situations, all that the family wants is money. Which brings me to my next point, when my brother went on ranting in the background about having a gun and the operator went on to ask my mother [did he just say he had a gun], my mother told the truth. She responded in a format that told the operator that that is what she said, not her. Had my mother said no he did not say that everyone would have made a big deal calling my mother a liar. So either way you look at it you people are out to make my family look like monsters, when infact the police are the monsters. Was there a need for my brother to be handcuffed after being shot at twenty times, evident that he was incapable of harming anyone? Answer that for me. For those of you who claim that my mom set her son/ my brother up to be killed re-evaluate the 911 call. Had the operator asked [does he have a gun?] my mother would have responded [no he does not]. Don't you dear attempt to continue dragging my mother/family's name through the mud. You know absolutely nothing about the night of the incident nor what my family is currently going through, so please go find something better to do with your lives and stay out of my family's. Thank you.
The level of racist hatred here is appalling. Some of you are the most unenlightened, bitter, jealous fools I have ever had the misfortune and displeasure to read from. One ignoramous who was printed in the AMNY Letters section today even had the temerity to suggest that all black men carry guns and that is why he was shoot, because of a preconception by police that he must have been armed. I can not believe I am a member of the same species as some of you. Such vituperations and disgust for fellow human beings is so representative of Nazi thinking that I woud suggest none of you who express such obloguy ever be allowed out into the light of day. If you care to, you can read my real views about this latest police debacle.
Another perspective on police shootings of unarmed citizens.
There is so much knee-jerk reaction to this most recent police shooting of yet another unarmed citizen. It is obvious that the protocols for handling this type of occurrence are inept and faulty on premise. It seems that the first priority is to kill rather than disarm or deescalate. That basic reality serves to further the notion that life other than self is valueless and self is, foremost, what matters even if your job is to serve and PROTECT. That includes protecting us from ourselves. Mental illness is a distinct characteristic of humans and the human condition. In a fit of rage, this young man goaded the police into doing exactly what it did, shoot to kill. What does that say about the police process and its leaders? It says loud and clear, we come first. Sure, the police commanded the kid to stop. But in his state of mind, a condition the NYPD should be expert at confronting, could not follow commands. Other less lethal measures should have been immediately at hand rather than the excuse that the special response units were getting set up when the events unfolded. Another process/protocol error. One might wish to consider, on another level, that this disturbed individual is a result of our very society. But that is another issue for discussion.
I believe the core mind-set of the NYPD needs to be one of avoiding weapons discharge till the very last possible moment to protect both the life of the officer AND the subject of concern. All this crap I have read about your not being a cop, you don't know what it is like to face this danger, is just that, crap. ALL of us become afraid for our lives at sometime during our existence. Fight or flight is high-school knowledge. Instincts for survival should be mediated if you are going to be in law enforcement. The cop mentality should be to understand this better than most people and act accordingly. Fear of death is and should not be the primary motivation for discharging a weapon. Of course, it is easy in hindsight to quarterback this recent scenario. But look at some of the details. Five cops discharged weapons from multiple points of convergence. All were shielded by automobiles. The subject was some 5-6 feet distant in evening but reasonable street lighting. Police accepted this setting as one of direct and imminent threat to themselves. Could all five have felt threatened so as to shot to kill when they were all at different position from the subject? It is unreasonable to believe that all five needed to discharge their weapons. Were they acting to preserve their own lives or the lives of their co-workers?
I am not anti-cop. I respect the position they place themselves in frequently. But it is still a career of choice and everyone of them knows full well the dangers of pursuing this line of work. And cops are not heros just because they became cops. If you go into police work believing this, you should never have been accepted in training. The police can consider themselves heros if they successfully avoided deadly force and resolved this peacefully. They did not. It seems the actions are a direct result of the police mind-set, a general societal acceptance of and condoning of violence and a lack of enlightened leadership in the NYPD which continues to perpetrate said concepts.
I further suggest that as a society steeped in violent imagery, an antiquated cowboy mentality and strike first preemptive thinking, our police forces merely reflect these societal attitudes. I guess a kindler, gentler America is a concept still too far removed from our nature.
Wow, someone got a Thesaurus as a gift recently.