The Associated Press
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. - A novice police officer who shot and killed a teenager driving across a school campus at a dance should be charged with manslaughter, a judge recommended Thursday.
Palm Beach County Judge Debra Moses Stephens said she heard no evidence justifying the killing of 16-year-old Jerrod Miller during three days of testimony from 31 witnesses at a rare public inquest.
Members of Miller’s family solemnly embraced and hugged after the ruling, but they might wait three weeks or more to learn whether the State Attorney’s Office will choose to charge Officer Darren Cogoni.
State Attorney Barry Krischer called for the inquest instead of a closed grand jury proceeding in order to allow public debate of evidence in the racially charged case. Cogoni is white; Miller was black.
The judge’s decision is not binding and will be considered along with other evidence in the ongoing criminal investigation, said state attorney spokesman Mike Edmondson.
The 23-year-old Cogoni had finished police training three weeks before he killed Miller after the teen drove onto campus for a school dance on Feb. 26.
Cogoni asked to see Miller’s driver license, and the teenager, who did not have one, drove off erratically, scattering students gathered outside the school gym, according to witnesses.
He had turned away from the gym and was driving through a narrow covered passageway when Cogoni fired his weapon, hitting Miller in the back of the head.
Cogoni did not appear at the inquest but provided a statement saying he fired only to protect bystanders who were mingling in the path of Miller’s car as it headed away from the school gym.
“I really honestly believed at that point there was a large group of people that were going to be run over by this vehicle,” Cogoni said.
None of the inquest witnesses corroborated Cogoni’s account, but many of them were not in a position to see down the breezeway.
Investigator Rick Caplano testified that Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents interviewed 33 people and were unable to find anyone who was in the path of Miller’s car during the shooting.
Cogoni’s attorneys maintain that investigators still haven’t located everyone who fled the area of the shooting.
Victor Williams, one of Miller’s cousins, said Cogoni should be charged.
“He’s a risk for the whole community,” Williams said as he left the courthouse on Wednesday. “Today it was my cousin, tomorrow it can be your cousin.”
Protest demonstrations are planned for the weekend, despite the judge’s ruling, said Josh Smith, the task force chairman for local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“There is a tremendous racial divide here and nothing is going to change until disparities are eliminated and until black citizens are included in the economics and politics of the city,” he said.