Teen Khiel Coppin said he was 'prepared to die'
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BY TANANGACHI MFUNI, CHRISTINA BOYLE, ALISON GENDAR and TINA MOORE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Wednesday, November 14th 2007, 8:41 AM
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Troubled Brooklyn teen Khiel Coppin told his mother he was 'prepared to die' and repeatedly yelled, 'I've got a gun!'
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Click on the image for a graphic depicting Khiel Coppin's tragic last day.
Hear the 911 Call (WARNING: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE)
A troubled Brooklyn teen told his mother he was "prepared to die," repeatedly yelled, "I've got a gun!" when she called 911 and then taunted cops before they killed him in a 20-shot barrage, police said Tuesday.
"Come get me! I have a gun! Let's do this!" Khiel Coppin shouted at cops when they arrived at his Bedford-Stuyvesant building late Monday, police said.
Though Coppin's mom told a 911 operator and a captain at the scene that her son did not have a gun, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Coppin gave five cops no choice but to shoot when he ignored their orders to stop and gestured as if he had a gun.
The object in his hand was a black hairbrush.
Coppin was fatally wounded, with 10 bullets hitting his upper body and legs. Police said they found handwritten notes in his pockets, including one that read, "Happyness iz death."
"This was a terrible tragedy for Khiel's family, no question about it," Kelly said. "Our condolences go out to his mother and to his family."
An hour later, Coppin's mother, father and siblings stood with their lawyer outside the morgue where the 18-year-old's body was taken and called for a more extensive investigation.
The lawyer, Paul Wooten, said Coppin's mom, Denise Owens, told a 911 operator and cops her son was unarmed.
"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 said.
Wooten said the family believes police rushed to judgment in their determination that the shooting was justified.
"Nobody but Houdini himself could have decided that in 24 hours," Wooten said.
Coppin's downward spiral began long before cops arrived at his family's apartment shortly after 7 p.m. Monday.
Earlier that day, his mom had called the Interfaith Medical Center's mobile crisis team to ask it to help with her mentally disturbed son, who had a prior arrest for robbery and got out of juvenile detention center in August.
She told the Interfaith team about noon that "Khiel would eventually do something bad and that he was talking about suicide," Kelly said.
An Interfaith psychologist responded to the Gates Ave. home about 6:30 p.m., but Coppin was not home.
A psychologist from Interfaith later told detectives Owens was afraid of her son because he was not taking his anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs - Risperdal and Concerta. Coppin had previously spent time in the Kings County Hospital psych ward, Kelly said.
The psychologist told cops Owens said she had taken her son's apartment keys and asked him to leave the home. But he refused, the psychologist said.
About a half hour after the Interfaith team left, Coppin returned home. His mom said she pretended to dial 911 twice to "scare him" and get him to leave, police said. This time, she really dialed for help.
When Coppin heard her talking to the 911 operator, he picked up a tape dispenser, put it under his shirt and said that he was "prepared to die," she told cops.
In tapes of the 911 call, Coppin can be heard in the background cursing and yelling, "I've got a gun, and I'm going to shoot you!"
At one point, the 911 operator asks Owens if her son has a gun, and she doesn't answer directly.
"You heard him," she said. "... I didn't say ... you heard it outta his mouth."
The operator later called back and asked for a description of the gunman. The mom said, "He does not, hmmm, who says ... He does not have a firearm."
When cops arrived at apartment 1-D, the door was ajar and they could see Coppin in a hallway with two knives, Kelly said. Owens and her 11-year-old daughter were also in the home.
Cops got Owens and her daughter out of the three-bedroom apartment and Owens told the officers her son was not carrying a gun, police said.
As the cops approached Coppin, he brandished the knives, lunged toward them and yelled, "Shoot me! Kill me!" police said.
The cops retreated into an outside hallway and Coppin went into a back bedroom, Kelly said.
At one point, the teen yelled, "Come get me! I have a gun! Let's do this!" cops said.
The cops in the building then heard Coppin moving a window gate and cops outside yelling, "He's going out the window!"
Coppin dropped about 4 feet from the window to the sidewalk and walked through an exterior gate toward cops in front of the building, police said.
NYPD Capt. Charles McEvoy ran from the apartment as the teen came out the window. He told the cops outside to back up and take cover, Kelly said.
They retreated and positioned themselves behind two parked cars. Coppin continued toward the cops, ignoring repeated orders to show his hands and get down on the ground, Kelly said.
He then reached under his sweatshirt, brandished an object and pointed it at cops "as if he were aiming a gun," Kelly said.
Five cops responded by firing a total of 20 rounds. Medics took Coppin to Woodhull Hospital, where he was declared dead.
The medical examiner said bullets hit Coppin in the chest, hip, forearm, knee, thigh and ankle. The wounds to his left lung and intestines were fatal.
"He didn't have to be killed," said Coppin's stepfather, Reginald Owens.
The shooting enraged some residents and community leaders, who likened it to last November's police shooting of Sean Bell, an unarmed bridegroom.
"The police have gotten out of control," City Councilman Charles Barron said.
Kelly said the shooting appeared to be "within department guidelines" and noted 10 witnesses told police Coppin ignored the cops' orders to stop. They included a 50-year-old woman who said she saw him raising an unknown dark object in his right hand while lunging at cops.
When asked by Internal Affairs Bureau detectives whether he could have been raising his hands in surrender, Kelly said, she responded, "Absolutely not."
All the cops involved in the shooting were given Breathalyzer tests, and all passed.
Kelly said cops did not know that Coppin had a history of mental illness. He said the incident unfolded too fast "to enable us to put the resources in place to appropriately restrain him."
One question i always ask myself how come these cops do not shoot WHITE teenage boys or men the way they shoot BLACKS.
