Friday, March 26, 1999
Police official joins memorial to shooting victim
BY TANYA BRICKING
The Cincinnati Enquirer
There are no flowers on the corner where Michael Carpenter died a week ago. Those who came to remember him Thursday dotted the sidewalk with prayers instead of mementos.
At St. Boniface Catholic Church in Northside, across the street from where police shot 30-year-old Mr. Carpenter to death during a traffic stop last Friday, ministers gathered alongside neighbors and city leaders and talked about finding faith and peace.
Mr. Carpenter died after police fired 10 shots because they said they feared he would run them over. Two shots hit him, in his right arm and the back of his head.
The Mount Airy man's death has opened a wound in the community that is about more than the death of one man. It's also about the struggle of police work and the strain a fatal shooting puts on the relationship between police and the community.
Cincinnati Assistant Chief Ronald Twitty represented the 1,000-member police force at the vigil. He said he came to show police take responsibility for what happened and must find peace themselves.
He was welcomed at the vigil. But he said he knows there will be critics.
“I think we need to take a more customer-service approach with the community instead of an adversarial one,” he said. “I wish this hadn't happened. It's tough to come out here. But it's part of our job to take the bitter with the sweet.”
Fred and Elsie Carpenter, who will pray for their oldest son again tonight at a funeral, said they are finding strength through others' support.
“It means a lot to us,” Mrs. Carpenter said. “The prayers, that's what's helping us get through it.”
Donald Watts knows the pain her family is feeling.
His son, Richard Watts, 18, was unarmed and climbing a brick wall when Cincinnati police shot him in the back and killed him six years ago in Walnut Hills.
“It's something that stays on my mind every day,” said Mr. Watts, 43, of Woodlawn.
He is among those calling for an independent investigation of the latest shooting.
But the ministers who organized the vigil say that wasn't their focus Thursday.
“The healing has started,” said the Rev. Alexander McEntire, pastor of Kirby Road Baptist Church in Northside. “What happened was tragic, but we have to go on from here and pray something like this never happens again.”
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