On 31 May, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a 13-year-old boy named Darius Simmons was allegedly shot to death by 75-year-old John Henry Spooner, right in front of the boy's mother, Patricia Larry. Spooner had confronted Darius as he was taking out the trash and accused the kid of stealing from his home. When Ms Larry attempted to defend her son verbally against the accusation, Spooner drew a 9mm handgun.
Darius, who had been in school at the time of the theft and who was, by all accounts, a well-behaved, outgoing sixth-grader, denied any wrongdoing. Spooner, unconvinced, reportedly raised his firearm and shot Darius in the chest at close range. Though fatally wounded, Darius attempted to escape and turned to run, while Spooner continued to unload, aiming for the boy's back. Darius collapsed on the pavement and Larry, who had watched this episode unfold in horror, ran to her child to see if he had a pulse. Darius was dead.
Spooner was known by his neighbors, police, and local elected officials as a gun collector. In a recently reported burglary, Spooner claimed that four shotguns were taken. The police had already done an investigation, several days prior, to burglaries at Spooner's residence. They had interviewed Darius Simmons' family, and concluded that no one from his household was involved. Larry, Darius's mother, had lived in that home for only a month.
After police arrived, Darius's body remained on the sidewalk, while his mother was questioned in a squad car for approximately two hours. During the investigation of the shooting, they searched Larry's home again. Finding nothing relevant to the homicide, they nevertheless proceeded to arrest Darius's older brother on account of truancy tickets.
In contrast, members of Spooner's family were reportedly allowed to re-enter their home and remove "items" – despite it being part of the crime scene. Spooner himself was granted bail for $300,000 (meaning that only $30,000 would have to be posted for him to be freed). Appearing in court Monday 11 June, Spooner pleaded not guilty to first-degree intentional homicide (Powell 1).
Darius Simmons' mother testified Tuesday that she watched from her front porch as John Henry Spooner gunned down her son.
"As I turned around, Mr. Spooner was standing there in front of Darius," Patricia Larry said. "He got a gun, and he pointed it at Darius."
She said Spooner, 76, demanded that Simmons put his hands up, and the 13-year-old complied. Larry said she asked the defendant why "he had that gun on (her) baby."
"He told Darius that he's going to teach him not to steal," she said. "And he shot him."
...
Larry continued, struggling to choke back tears as she described the aftermath of the shooting.
"I ran off the porch to my son," she said. "I checked for a pulse. I checked both of his wrists. He didn't have a pulse so I went to his neck, and it was very faint.... I pulled up his shirt and I could see that he had a bullet hole."
She said her son was unarmed and did nothing to provoke Spooner (Stanley-Becker 1).
When Milwaukee Police Department (“MPD”) officers arrived on the scene to investigate, they kept Darius’ mother in the back of an MPD squad car for more than 90 minutes as Darius lay dying in the street and as he was later taken to the hospital. Community members have expressed outrage that the MPD did not allow Darius’ mother to be with her son during the last minutes of his life. The MPD defended their actions, claiming that the homicide investigation trumped any concerns over showing compassion to Darius’ mother.
In response to the community’s concern over this incident, the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission (“FPC”) conducted a review of the MPD’s handling of the investigation. While the FPC determined that the MPD officers involved did not technically violate any rules or procedures, the FPC recommended that the MPD develop new procedures and training so that police officers are more sensitive to how their actions may be viewed by the community. The MPD also acknowledged that it could have been more sensitive to Darius’ mother during the homicide investigation (Milwaukee 1).
The first officers arrived at the scene of the shooting at 9:52 a.m. May 31. Simmons was taken to Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. His mother, Patricia Larry, was taken to a squad car shortly after 10 a.m. She was not interviewed by a detective until 10:50 a.m.
She asked if she could go to the hospital to be with her son but agreed to remain on the scene until the interviews were completed. Larry spent about an hour-and-a-half in two squad cars, arriving at the hospital at 11:58 a.m. Her son was pronounced dead almost an hour earlier, at 11:10 a.m.
Questioning of witnesses to the shooting followed customary protocols for homicide investigations, even when witnesses include the mother of a victim, the report says.
Detectives said that allowing Larry to go to the hospital before being interviewed could jeopardize their investigation and damage the criminal case against Spooner. They mistakenly believed, however, that Milwaukee Fire Department protocol prohibited Larry from riding with her son in the ambulance to the hospital.
And though investigators were not required to interview Larry at the scene before taking her to the hospital, they had discretion over where and when the interview would be conducted.
The report says investigators failed to consider the unique circumstances surrounding the shooting - primarily that a mother witnessed her son being shot to death - which led to community frustration over the investigation.
"Community members presumed that malice and prejudice were overwhelming reasons for the failure to consider" those circumstances, the report says.
Among other conclusions in the report:
Police did not consider options to a scene interview of Larry, and allowing her to go to the hospital immediately would not have jeopardized their investigation.
Larry provided written consent for officers to search her home for Spooner's stolen property, which was not found.
Simmons' brother, who is not identified in the report, was arrested at the scene for five outstanding municipal warrants, but it was not appropriate for police to detain him for the 10 hours he was in custody because of the unusual circumstances surrounding his arrest.
Allowing Spooner's family to retrieve firearms from his house before the weapons could be inventoried by police exposed officers to accusations of preferential treatment and the appearance of race playing a factor in their investigation.
"The mere appearance of preferential treatment, even in just a single instance, can greatly influence the public's perception and trust of the police department," the report says.
The report recommends that police review allocation of personnel at homicide scenes and improve oversight of discretionary decisions (Garza 1).
The twice-delayed trial comes on the heels of the Saturday acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin. Spooner's case has drawn attention for its perceived similarities to the Zimmerman case, in which the neighborhood watchman was alleged to have racially profiled 17-year-old Martin.
Jury selection for the Spooner trial focused Monday on eliminating potential jurors whose consideration of the case might be influenced by their reactions to the Zimmerman verdict. The final jury of 12 with two alternates comprises 10 men and four women. One is black.
In opening statements Tuesday, no one disputed that Spooner shot and killed Simmons on May 31, 2012.
What is in dispute is why Spooner did so, and whether he was in a mental condition to be held responsible for his actions. Spooner has confessed to shooting Simmons, saying in statements to police on the scene that he had reached a "breaking point" after his house was burglarized two days earlier. He suspected his teenage neighbor of carrying out the heist and gunned him down in front of his mother.
"The best piece of evidence you're going to see in this case is the murder," Assistant District Attorney Mark Williams said, referring to a videotape of the incident that left Simmons dead. "You're going to see the terror in Darius' face, and you're going to see how cold-blooded and callous Mr. Spooner was."
The prosecution displayed that evidence Tuesday afternoon — a video recording of the encounter between the defendant and the victim in front of their homes and the subsequent shooting — recorded on one of Spooner's private surveillance cameras.
Simmons is the first to enter the video, seen retrieving a garbage receptacle from the sidewalk. Spooner then exits his front door and confronts his neighbor. As Spooner brandishes his weapon, Simmons backpedals and Spooner shoots him. The victim then runs away in the opposite direction, as the defendant takes another shot at him, this time from behind, but misses.
Simmons' 18-year-old brother, Theodore Larry, testified Tuesday afternoon that he came downstairs on the morning of May 31, 2012, to find his mother in the frame of their front door, with Spooner on the sidewalk pointing a gun at the doorway.
"I've never seen my mom like that," Theodore Larry recalled on the witness stand. "My mom told me (Spooner) had shot my little brother. She said, 'You ain't going out there.'"
Larry said he ran out his back door and found his brother lying on the curb around the block. He was crying as he took his lifeless brother in his arms, he said.
Both mother and brother watched Tuesday's proceedings from the courtroom gallery and were joined by a contingent of family members, friends and a pastor from All Peoples Church.
When Williams displayed a photo of the victim's gunshot wound, Simmons' brother and another family member left the courtroom in anguish. An autopsy revealed that the bullet exited Simmons' back.
Defense Attorney Franklyn Gimbel said he would not dispute the prosecution's factual narrative but would question whether his client had the intent to kill the victim. If convicted of homicide, Spooner will enter a plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. In addition to alleged mental illness, the 76-year-old is in poor physical shape, suffering from pneumonia, Gimbel said.
"What you will have to decide is whether the behavior of John Spooner was such that he had the intent to kill this young man," Gimbel said in his opening remarks Tuesday morning. "He did not."
Alderman Bob Donovan was called to testify about a conversation he had with Spooner over breakfast at George Webb Restaurant the morning of the shooting. Just hours before he killed Simmons, Donovan said, Spooner uttered an ambiguous statement that might have forecast his lethal actions.
That morning, Donovan testified, the defendant expressed dissatisfaction with how the police were handling the break-in at his home that left windows shattered and four of his shotguns missing.
"There are other ways of handling these things," Spooner said, according to Donovan.
Before recessing Tuesday afternoon, the prosecution played an interview with Spooner recorded five hours after the shooting. The video shows Charles Mueller, a homicide detective for the Milwaukee Police Department, questioning Spooner. The video will aid in Spooner's insanity plea, Gimbel said in the hallway outside the courtroom. He said his client is unlikely to testify on his own behalf.
In the interview, Spooner detailed his medical conditions, including depression and anxiety. "Am I depressed now? No," he said.
When Mueller asked him why he shot his teenage neighbor, Spooner said he "wanted him to give (him his) shotguns back."
Mueller testified that Spooner was "cooperative and matter-of-fact" and that "he seemed very unconcerned about what had just occurred."
Milwaukee Police Officer Michael Urbaniak testified that the defendant made several statements to him at the scene of the shooting, including acknowledging that "they are going to throw the book at me because I shot the kid," and commenting on his own poor health, saying, "I really don't have much longer to live on this Earth" (Stanley-Becker “Darius” 2-4).
John Henry Spooner, 76, told a stunned courtroom Thursday that justice was served when he shot and killed his 13-year-old neighbor.
If his gun hadn't jammed, Spooner said, he would have shot Darius Simmons' brother, too.
"I wouldn't call it revenge; I would call it justice," Spooner said to audible gasps from the courtroom gallery, where Simmons' mother, Patricia Larry, sat watching with friends and religious leaders. ...
"Something snapped," Spooner recalled from the stand Thursday, describing his certainty that his neighbors — Simmons and his 18-year-old brother, Theodore Larry — had burglarized his home and stolen four of his shotguns two days before he confronted his teenage neighbor.
Convicted Wednesday of first-degree intentional homicide for fatally shooting Simmons, Spooner took the witness stand Thursday afternoon to testify in his own defense in the insanity portion of his trial. …
… Confronted by Spooner, the teen told him he had not taken the guns.
"I wanted those shotguns back. They were a big part of my life," Spooner said. "If what I did was in cold blood, what do you think about these kids robbing a sick old man?"
His attorney, Franklyn Gimbel, asked: "Did you intend to kill Darius Simmons?"
"I don't know," Spooner replied. "I was going after something important, and it was mine. What more can I say?"
…
Assistant District Attorney Mark Williams asked Spooner if he felt bad for shooting Simmons.
"Not that bad," Spooner replied.
He said he intended to frighten the victim but was moved to pull the trigger when Simmons' mother indicated that she was calling the police, thus "brushing him off," he said, with a sweeping motion of his fingers in the air. "I don't like that."
Williams urged Spooner to say whether he intended to kill Simmons and to explain why he attempted to shoot at him a second and third time. He missed on the second attempt and the gun jammed on the third.
"I don't know," Spooner answered repeatedly, closing his eyes and bowing his head.
Jonathan Safran, an attorney representing Simmons' family, said Spooner's testimony indicated the "level of depth of evil this man has" (Stanley Becker “John” 1-2).
A jury found Spooner guilty of first-degree intentional homicide last week, a conviction carrying a mandatory life sentence. The judge could have allowed for the possibility of parole after 20 years, but rejected that option, citing Spooner’s lack of remorse and desire to also kill the teen’s brother.
Spooner, who has lung cancer and other physical ailments, will spend the rest of his life in prison (Associated 1).
There are many ways to view this latest chapter of American race relations. One dimension of the story is that Larry had moved to this so-called white section of Milwaukee because she wanted to give her family better educational opportunities and the chance to escape the risks of inner-city violence (in a manner not unlike the way the parents of Trayvon Martin had moved to that gated community where he was murdered). I understand this because my mother did the very same thing with me when I was Darius's age. I was certainly called the N-word by the good white folks who "welcomed" us to the neighborhood, but no one thought to pull a gun and shoot me.
Another way to view this is that Milwaukee, like most urban centers in America, is scarred with violence. Blacks and Latinos piled into ghetto dwellings, with limited educational, employment, and life choices, do definitely commit horrific acts of violence against each other. I see this every day in my own neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. But because such violence does occur does not mean that a George Zimmerman, in Florida, or a John Henry Spooner, in Wisconsin, has a right to arm himself to the teeth and become a de facto law enforcer, who demonizes every single black or Latino young male they encounter.
Rather than address the root causes of crime and violence in America, we point fingers, we cast blame randomly: we shoot to kill, we ask questions later. But that is the climate of America: if you are a black or brown person, you are a criminal suspect – the culprit for every societal ill – even if you have nothing to do with those problems.
In Wisconsin, Republican Governor Scott Walker has just survived a bitterly divisive recall election, occasioned by his controversial anti-union law. This same Governor Walker also approved a conceal-and-carry gun law in his state – as if the vigilante tendency needed any encouragement.
Finally, it pains me to see yet another mother, another black mother, posing with a picture of a dead son, gunned down before he had a chance to live. No doubt, she will have to [did] listen to the arguments of Spooner's attorneys, casting him as a victim of crime. Perhaps she will even be forced to hear doubt cast on her dead son's reputation.
We have been here before. And we will be here again. Unless we Americans can have real, honest, and serious conversations about race and racism in the US, we are condemned to repeat the dehumanising lies that poison our community relations and cause the endless-seeming cycle of deaths like Darius Simmons's (Powell 2-3)
Works cited:
The Associated Press. “JUSTICE: Wis. Man Who Killed Teen Neighbor Gets Life in Prison.” Black America, July 23, 2013. Net. https://blackamericaweb.com/2013/07/23/justice-wis-man-who-killed-teen-neighbor-gets-life-in-prison/
Garza, Jesse. “Report Criticizes Police Department Response in Fatal Shooting.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 5, 2012. Net. http://archive.jsonline.com/news/crime/fire-and-police-commission-report-criticizes-police-department-response-in-fatal-shooting-nn74ka5-172927371.html
“Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission Issues Public Statement Regarding Darius Simmons Investigation.” Samster Konkel Safron Lawyers, June 12, 2012. Net. https://skslawyers.com/2012/06/milwaukee-fire-and-police-commission-issues-public-statement-regarding-darius-simmons-investigation/
Powell, Kevin. “The Fatal Racism that Shot Darius Simmons to Death.” The Guardian, June 11, 2012. Net. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/11/fatal-racism-shot-darius-simmons-death
Stanley-Becker, Issac. “Darius Simmons' Mother Describes Watching John Spooner Gun Down Son.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 13, 2003. Net. https://archive.jsonline.com/news/crime/opening-statements-in-spooner-trial-turn-on-intent-mental-capacity-b9955359z1-215676871.html/
Stanley-Becker, Issac. “John Spooner: 'I Wouldn't Call It Revenge; I Would Call It Justice'.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 18, 2013. Net. http://archive.jsonline.com/news/crime/verdict-expected-Thursday-in-spooner-insanity-plea-b9957092z1-215987941.html/
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