Sunday, March 21, 1999
Parents investigate police shooting
They cite silence over son's death
BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Frustrated by Cincinnati police silence, parents of a driver shot to death in a Northside traffic stop began their own investigation on Saturday.
Elsie and Fred Carpenter retained lawyer Kenneth Lawson to find out what happened at 1:30 a.m. Friday after two District 5 officers pulled over their son, Michael, and approached the Pontiac he was driving.
“The police have not said one single, solitary word,” Mrs. Carpenter said. “They said they couldn't tell me nothing.”
Mr. Lawson said he would hire a forensic pathologist to do an autopsy and investigators to examine the shooting scene and vehicle.
“We need to know why an unarmed man was shot in the head while he was still in an automobile,” Mr. Lawson said.
Saturday, police would not say anything about the confrontation that began when Mr. Carpenter was stopped at Chase and Pitts avenues.
Police initially said there was a struggle, but Mr. Carpenter, 30, of Mt. Airy, was in his car when Officers Brent McCurley, 27, and his partner, Michael B. Miller II, 24, fired 10 shots at him.
One bullet hit Mr. Carpenter in the back of the head; another hit his left arm. He died 15 hours later at University Hospital.
Police said Mr. Carpenter had no gun, and it was not clear whether a utility knife found in the car was involved.
Mr. Lawson said he wants to know whether officers knew Mr. Carpenter's identity and why they apparently shot him from the rear of the car.
Mr. Carpenter had a lengthy criminal history and was twice convicted of assaulting police officers in Hamilton County.
He entered the state prison system in 1988, convicted of theft. That was followed by convictions for assaulting two police officers, aggravated menacing and drug abuse.
Mr. Carpenter's death came 10 days after his girlfriend in Over-the-Rhine sought an order for him to stay away because, she claimed, he beat her.
Four months ago his brother, DeJuan Carpenter, told police his brother tried to kill him with a kitchen knife and threatened to burn down the family's apartment. Mr. Carpenter was wanted in those incidents.
“He made some wrong choices in life,” his mother conceded, but the oldest of her four sons and two daughters “was a good person.”
Mr. Carpenter left Aiken High School without graduating, she said, but he earned his GED and learned to cut hair in prison.
“He was a beautiful barber,” his mother said, and Mr. Carpenter was trying to earn tuition for barbering school. “That's what he was working toward.”
Mrs. Carpenter could not explain the violence in her son's life, because she said he was a lively, funny person who put people at ease and didn't look for fights.
Even the confrontation with his brother didn't last long, she said. “That same night, they made up.”
Mrs. Carpenter was puzzled why the traffic stop turned deadly. “I have no explanation. I wish I did.”
The shooting is being investigated by police homicide and internal investigations units, the Hamilton County prosecutor's office, the city's independent Office of Municipal Investigations, and the Citizens Police Advisory Commission.
Officers McCurley and Miller are on paid administrative leave pending an evaluation by a police psychologist.
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