Antwon Rose Jr. was a 17-year old honor student who was shot and killed by a police officer in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as he was running from a traffic stop following a separate shooting.
Antwon Rose Jr. was born on July 12, 2000, to Michelle Kenney and Antwon Rose Sr. He was an honor student at Woodland Hills High School where he played basketball and the saxophone. The superintendent described Rose as an “excellent student” who took Advance Placement classes. He coached children in after-school classes at the Pittsburgh Gymnastics Club, and at age 14 he began volunteering at the Free Store, which provides surplus and donated items to those in need.
On the night of June 19, 2018, officers from the East Pittsburgh Police Department responded to several 911 calls of a drive-by shooting in North Braddock, a borough in Allegheny County east of Pittsburgh. Multiple shots had been fired from a passing vehicle witnesses described as a silver Chevy Cruz. A 22-year old man named William Ross sustained a nonfatal gunshot wound in the abdomen and fired back at the vehicle, resulting in a shattered window. A short time later, officers spotted and pulled over a vehicle matching that description. While they arrested the driver, Rose and Zaijuan Hester exited the vehicle and began fleeing the scene. Officer Michael Rosfeld fired his service weapon three times, striking Rose in the back, face, and elbow. Rose was transported to a hospital where he died.
Rose was unarmed at the time he was shot, though investigators later determined there were two guns in the vehicle. Hester later pleaded guilty to shooting Ross and was sentenced to up to twenty-two years in prison (Coen 1-2)
The trial of former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld continued into a second day Wednesday in a Pittsburgh courtroom where three witnesses were called during morning testimony.
John Leach, a neighbor who lives a few houses away from where the June shooting took place, said he was on the front porch when Rosfeld fired three bullets into 17-year-old Anton Rose II after pulling over an unlicensed taxicab suspected to have been used in a drive-by shooting minutes earlier. Rose was a front-seat passenger in the cab and was shot as he fled.
Rosfeld, 30, faces a charge of criminal homicide.
Leach, the second witness to testify Wednesday, said after the shooting, he was standing by Rose’s body, watching Rosfeld on the sidewalk nearby saying repeatedly, “I don’t know why I shot him. I don’t know why I fired.”
He said later, he saw other officers consoling Rosfeld as he was crying, bent over, and hyperventilating. He said Rosfeld looked like he was about to pass out.
Leach said he saw Rosfeld pointing a gun at Rose while at least one of Rose’s hands was in the air. Then, Rose turned and ran, he said (Santanam 1-2).
One of the victims of a drive-by shooting that occurred minutes before an East Pittsburgh police officer shot 17-year-old Antwon Rose II told police in January that it was Antwon who shot him, and it was Antwon who had a “beef” with him.
“The beef was between me and him, that car came by, he shot me, I ran to the store,” William Ross told a Pennsylvania State Police trooper Jan. 16, according to a police report. “I didn’t report it. Five minutes later, he was dead.”
That statement was included in a defense motion filed Friday on behalf of former East Pittsburgh police officer Michael Rosfeld, who is charged with homicide for Antwon’s death. It contradicts what investigators say — a man with Antwon was the shooter.
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Investigators said video from the scene shows the shots were fired from the passenger-side back seat of the gold Chevy Cruz used in the drive-by. Hester, they said, was in the back seat, while Antwon was in the front passenger seat.
The video shows that the front passenger window was closed at the time of the drive-by.
But there is evidence that Antwon had gunshot residue on his hands, and that a stolen gun was found beneath the front passenger seat of the car. He also had an empty magazine in his pocket.
Defense attorney Patrick Thomassey, who represents Mr. Rosfeld, has been trying throughout the pre-trial process to portray Antwon as a criminal, arguing that he has the right to tell the jury about the evidence found on Antwon and in the car that is damaging to the teen’s reputation.
The prosecution, however, has argued that those details are irrelevant as to whether Mr. Rosfeld was justified in shooting an unarmed, fleeing teenager in the back three times.
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Ross told detectives that he was at Fa’s Market that evening and saw a gold car pull up.
“Ross stated that he heard someone say, ‘Is that him?’ and he noticed that [Antwon] was in the front passenger seat, and [another man] was driving. He said that he knows both from playing football. Ross stated that [Antwon] was just in the store two days prior to the shooting. Ross also stated that just that day he saw [Antwon] down at the hoop court playing basketball,” the report said.
“Ross said that after hearing, ‘Is that him?’ he observed a black gun come out of the back passenger window, Ross stated a black male wearing a black hoodie over his head was holding the gun.”
The rear passenger started firing, the interview continues, and Ross ran back inside the store, with his right leg burning.
“He said that he ran to the back of [the store] because he wanted to get to the basement because he felt ‘they’ were coming into the store to kill him.”
Ross then told Allegheny County police Detective Kevin McCue that he believed there was a beef between them because Ross is from Braddock, and the people in the car — including Antwon — were from Rankin.
“Ross stated that Rankin boys shot Braddock boys, and then Braddock Boys go [shoot] Rankin Boys. That’s the beef,” the detective wrote.
But in the interview with the state trooper in January, Ross did not repeat that information — saying only that the beef was with Antwon (Ward 1-2).
The incident was filmed by a bystander and the video was posted to social media. “Why are they shooting?” the person recording the video says. “All they did was run and they’re shooting at them!” The shooting of Rose resulted in demonstrations over the next few days. Protesters blocked an interstate highway for several hours and gathered outside the East Pittsburgh Police Department and Allegheny County Courthouse where they demanded the officer be held to account (Coen 2).
Prosecutors charged Mr. Rosfeld with an open count of homicide, meaning the jury could have convicted him of murder or manslaughter.
Antwon, who was unarmed, ran after Mr. Rosfeld pulled over the car he was riding in with another teenager. The car, a Chevrolet Cruz, matched the description of one involved in a nearby drive-by shooting about 10 minutes earlier.
Mr. Rosfeld shot Antwon, a passenger, three times — in his back, face and elbow.
Prosecutors say Mr. Rosfeld, 30, gave inconsistent statements about the shooting, including whether he thought Antwon had a gun.
On Thursday, Mr. Rosfeld testified in his own defense for 90 minutes. “It happened very quickly,” he said. “My intent was to end the threat that was made against me.”
He said on the stand that he thought he saw one of the two teenagers who ran from the car point a gun at him. He said he did not know which teenager made the motion.
“This case had nothing to do with race, absolutely nothing to do with race,” Patrick Thomassey, Mr. Rosfeld’s lawyer, said after the verdict. “And some people in this city have made it that way and it’s sad. Mike Rosfeld was doing his job. He did his job. And it had nothing to do with the color of anyone he was arresting.”
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The jury consisted of six men and six women, nine of whom were white and three of whom were African-American.
On Friday morning, one of the white female jurors was dismissed by the judge and was replaced by an alternate juror, a white man. A reason was not given.
Mr. Rosfeld had been on the East Pittsburgh police force for about three weeks and had been officially sworn in just hours before the shooting.
Previously, he had been a member of the University of Pittsburgh police force, but he left the job after discrepancies were found between one of his sworn statements and evidence in an arrest, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has reported (Hassan 1-2).
Rosfeld, who is white, had parted ways from the university after an incident in which he became violent with a black student—whose parent happened to be the school’s vice chancellor (Patterson 3).
Rose’s family on Friday condemned the [acquittal] verdict. “I hope that man never sleeps at night,” the teen’s mother, Michelle Kenney, said according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I hope he gets as much sleep as I do, which is none.”
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“Antwon Rose was shot in his back. ... He was unarmed, and he did not pose a threat to the officer or to the community, and the verdict today says that is okay, that is acceptable behavior from a police officer,” [the Rose family’s attorney S. Lee] Merritt said. (Sakuma 2).
In August 2018 Rose’s family filed a civil rights lawsuit against Rosfeld and the borough of East Pittsburgh. The family alleged racial bias, lack of training, and use of excessive force. The suit was settled in October 2019 for $2 million (Coen 2).
[Antwon’s mother, interviewed, recollects:]
My daughter and I are close, but we're a lot alike. We're outgoing, we're boisterous, we're loud. Antwon was none of that. He was just so different. He was so kind, so gentle, so understanding.
When he was little, my daughter and I would laugh because Antwon would give popsicles to the kids up and down the street. He didn't care if he wasn't playing with you. He gave them out anyway.
He was funny. His facial expressions were always unbelievable. If you wanted to know what Antwon was thinking, all you had to do was look at his face. He had jokes for days.
Antwon's talents were endless. Antwon could ski, snowboard--as a matter of fact, one of his friends said at his funeral that he was the best snowboarder he ever met. Antwon played the saxophone and the guitar and loved basketball, but he wanted to work rather than playing high school ball.
Antwon was great at math and he liked science. Antwon, when he was little, he always told us he wanted to be a lawyer. Then when he was in high school, he decided he wanted to be a chemical engineer.
When Antwon was in the fourth grade, I got a call from the principal. She asked me to come in. I was worried because he had never gotten in trouble. She ended up calling because she could not believe that Antwon wasn't in the gifted program. And back then, there weren't any Black kids in the gifted program. She pushed for him to be in that program because she knew that's where he belonged.
About two days before Antwon was murdered, we had a family meeting. The family meeting was about staying out of the way. We didn't live in the greatest neighborhood, so I worried about him coming home and back. I sat on my porch every day and waited for him to come home, whether it was from school, work, I would look up the street, make sure he was coming and make sure no one interfered with him making it home.
At the family meeting I was talking to him and he just kept saying, “I know, Mom. I know, Mom. I know, Mom. I know, Mom.” I was upset and I was just like, “I don't think you understand.” Then, the day after Antwon was killed, his teacher gave me a poem he wrote titled, "I AM NOT WHAT YOU THINK.”
I am confused and afraid
I wonder what path I will take
I hear that there’s only two ways out
I see mothers bury their sons
I want my mom to never feel that pain
I am confused and afraid
I realized he heard me all those years, and all those family meetings because that poem is exactly what we talked about. Had I known about it I probably would have stopped asking him, "Do you hear me?"
I'm biracial and Antwon was raised to hang out with white kids. Antwon knew he was Black as far as common sense, but based on the people he hung out with, he didn't understand what that meant. I felt that if anything was to ever happen or the police were called, even if he was at a party, they would automatically blame Antwon. The blame would be put upon him before they would be put upon the kids he hung out with. That's the harsh reality, but it's our truth.
I worked at a police department for over a decade. I was the administrative assistant to the chief of police and the mayor. I saw a lot of things that I didn't think were right.
I got fed up with the idea of there not being any accountability. I’d see people come in to file civilian complaints, and say they were harassed or their civil rights had been violated and nothing happened.
As much as I tried to encourage people to take their complaints elsewhere and take other actions, I felt like it was useless. I felt like I was beat down by a system that was designed only for police.
Don’t get me wrong. I worked with a lot of great people, but it’s amazing, the stuff the bad ones get away with. To get a call and hear an officer got fired from somewhere else and that’s why they ended up here, it's just unbelievable. And when you're responsible for the paperwork when they’re getting hired, it's hard to handle.
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As I was driving to the place where Antwon was killed, I ran into a bunch of police officers at the first location. They all gave me the run-around. It all showed up that day -- disrespectful, arrogant, and unbelievably ignorant. Luckily there was a cop there who knew me. He said, "Michelle, Antwon’s not that type of kid but if you believe it's him, go to McKeesport Hospital.”
On my way to the hospital my daughter called me and said, "Mom, you need to call granddaddy before you go."
My dad is a police officer in another jurisdiction. If I needed to call him before I got to the hospital, I knew what that meant.
Allegheny County Police never told me Antwon was killed by a cop. Instead, they wanted more information about what Antwon did that day. I told them, "I just need to know if my son is dead."
The cop told me, "I'm not telling you anything."
My 17-year-old is laying there and the cop is telling me that if I don't answer his questions, he can't tell me anything. Instead of telling me if my son was dead, the cop told me that they found $300 in Antwon’s pocket as well as a clip from a gun. The officer wanted to know where the money came from.
An officer who is also an EMT showed up on the scene. He could not believe that they didn't try to save Antwon’s life. At the trial, he testified that Antwon had nothing in his pocket. When he made that statement, they came back and said that clip did not have Antwon's fingerprints on it. How could a clip end up in a pocket in the skinny jeans he had on and not have his fingerprints on it?
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I've talked to Tamir Rice’s. She gives me the best advice, even when I don't want to hear it. I've spoken to Botham Jean’s mom. I check on her, she checks on me. DJ Henry’s mom is unbelievably amazing. That's just a beautiful soul. And my closest relationships are here with the mothers in Pittsburgh. We’ve had four police shootings since Antwon’s murder and none of them have received the attention that Antwon did. Those are the moms I check on because they’re right here in my city.
If I could speak to Antwon I’d tell him that I love him and that I'm sorry--so sorry. ...(Kenney 1-3).
Rose's mother, Michelle Kenney, is calling for police reforms including legislation to create a database of complaints against officers for future hiring.
...
“I just don’t think people understand how many officers are actually transferred to other departments with bad reputations that they take with them from their previous employment.”
… “If you’re a good cop, this list will not affect you at all, other than the fact that you won’t be put in a predicament that you end up working with a bad cop” (Gavin 1).
In June 2018, a police officer shot and killed Antwon Rose II, an unarmed black teenager, in a small borough outside Pittsburgh.
Rose’s death led to emotional protests, the arrest of the officer, and a package of police reform bills introduced by Democrats — legislation that went nowhere in the Republican-controlled state legislature.
Now, two years later, protests have once again erupted across Pennsylvania and the nation demanding justice for George Floyd, a black man from Minnesota who died after an officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Floyd’s death has also reignited calls by Pennsylvania legislators to change the state’s deadly force law and ramp up police oversight. But without GOP support, many of these measures have no chance of reaching Gov. Tom Wolf.
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In the aftermath of Rose’s death, [Senate Minority Leader Jay] Costa proposed a bill that would create a disciplinary database and require additional training and mental-health screenings for officers. A version of the measure introduced at the beginning of this legislative session has been sitting in committee without a hearing since March 2019.
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The reform package unveiled Tuesday also calls on the legislature to “eliminate effectuating an arrest as a justification for the use of deadly force.”
State law gives police officers wide discretion to use deadly force, including when they believe a suspect attempted or successfully committed a forcible felony, and the force was necessary to complete an arrest. Rosfeld was acquitted in Rose’s death after a defense expert testified that the officer’s actions were justified, even though the teen was unarmed.
While state law lays out the circumstances under which an officer may use deadly force, not every State law department has a written policy on how it should be used — including the one that employed Rosfeld when he fatally shot Rose.
“One of the shocking realizations after recent police-involved shootings at the local level is that municipalities and their law enforcement departments have little-to-no policies guiding the decisions that police have to make in their line of work,” Costa wrote in a memo seeking support from his colleagues for a measure that would compel law enforcement agencies to adopt a use-of-force policy (Fernandez 1-2).
The East Pittsburgh Police … apparently had nothing in place to dictate how Rosfeld should have behaved. “When they first came on scene,” [Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen] Zappala said, the major crimes investigators asked, “‘Well how do you handle these situations? What’s your policy?’ And they said, ‘We don’t have a policy.'”
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The East Pittsburgh force is tiny—just eight officers … departments that small often don’t have resources or expertise to develop and maintain their own policy manuals (Patterson 3).
But like his database bill, Costa’s use-of-force legislation has been sitting in committee for more than a year. And like any piece of legislation that reaches Wolf’s desk, these reform measures need Republican support to advance.
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Costa is used to seeing reform bills wither in committee, though he’s hopeful the recent protests will draw new attention “to the need for this legislation.”
“These incidents occur and then we protest. Then we talk about it, and then time passes and it is ignored,” he said. “We need to break that cycle and we need to make sure these conversations take place” (Fernandez 2-3).
[Paste the following links on Google to see two videos]
Surveillance video: Drive-by shooting in North Braddock ...
Black unarmed teen Antwon Rose shot in Pittsburgh - YouTube
Works cited:
Coen, Ross. “Antwon Rose Jr. (2000-2018).” BlackPast, August 13, 2020. Net. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/people-african-american-history/antwon-rose-jr-2000-2018/
Fernandez, Cynthia. “Police Reforms in Pa. Languished after Antwon Rose’s kKlling. Will Now Be Any Different?” Spotlight, June 3, 2020. Net. https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2020/06/police-protest-pennsylvania-antwon-rose-use-of-force/
Gavin, Kevin. “Two Years after Antwon Rose Killing, His Mother Continues Call for Police Reform.” The Confluence, June 18, 2020. Net. https://www.wesa.fm/show/the-confluence/2020-06-18/two-years-after-antwon-rose-killing-his-mother-continues-call-for-police-reform
Hassan, Adeel. “Antwon Rose Shooting: White Police Officer Acquitted in Death of Black Teenager.” The New York Times, March 22, 2019. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/us/antwon-rose-shooting.html
Kenney, Michelle. “I’m Antwon Rose’s Mother. My Son Had To Be Killed by Police in Order for Him To Change the World.” ABC News, July 13, 2020. Net. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/im-antwon-roses-mother-son-killed-police-order/story?id=71677745
Patterson, Brandon E. “Cop Who Killed This Unarmed Teen Wasn’t Following Department Policy—Because There Wasn’t One.” Mother Jones, June 28, 2018. Net. https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/06/police-officer-killed-antwon-rose-east-pittsburgh-police-department-2/
Sakuma, Amanda. “East Pittsburgh Police Officer Acquitted in Shooting Death of 17-Year-Old Antwon Rose.” Vox, March 23, 2019. Net. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/23/18278470/police-officer-acquitted-antwon-rose-unarmed-shooting
Santanam, Ramesh. “Witness: White Officer Michael Rosfeld Panicked after Shooting Unarmed Black Teen Antwon Rose II.” The Florida Times-Union, March 20, 2019. Net. https://www.jacksonville.com/news/20190320/witness-white-officer-michael-rosfeld-panicked-after-shooting-unarmed-black-teen-antwon-rose-ii
Ward, Paula Reed. “Court Filing: Drive-By Victim Told Police that Antwon Rose II Shot Him.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 1, 2019. Net. https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2019/03/01/Michael-Rosfeld-Antown-Rose-shooting-east-pittsburgh-drive-by-victim-tells-police/stories/201903010161
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