A violent encounter at Friendship Court on the night of Saturday, August 21, between two white Charlottesville police officers and Kerry Cook, a black wanted man, ended with one of the cops firing a single shot into Cook’s stomach—that much eyewitnesses and the police department agree upon. But what happened during the struggle off Garrett Street, which left Cook in a coma at the UVA Medical Center, has left residents of the public housing complex on Garrett Street, and, perhaps, a large segment of Charlottesville’s black community, disturbed, confused and angry.
Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo and City Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman are keeping quiet about the incident, citing an ongoing investigation, though Longo has issued a few paragraphs about the Friendship Court shooting in several press releases to the media.
But while City officials are tight-lipped, eyewitnesses to the shooting and many members of the black community are speaking out loudly, saying around 100 Friendship Court residents, including many children, saw police officers William Sclafani and Jeremy Carper severely beat Cook, who was resisting arrest, before getting one handcuff on him, dragging Cook into an apartment and then shooting him.
Chapman says the shooting was the first involving City police since a fatal incident in December 2002, in which Jonathan Jermaine Breeden, 23, shot himself in the head during a shootout with police near 800 Page St. Police were later deemed to have acted appropriately in the gunfight, Chapman says.
Charlottesville police have said that during the struggle with Cook, “both officers used escalating levels of force in an attempt to bring him under control. Ultimately, Officer Sclafani fired a single gunshot that struck Mr. Cook, thus bringing the violent confrontation to an end.”
The shooting was not Sclafani’s first encounter with Cook. C-VILLE Weekly has learned that Sclafani arrested the 33-year-old Cook in July 2003 for assault and battery. According to the arrest warrant, Cook, who has a lengthy rap sheet, was living in Kents Store, which is in Fluvanna County, at the time of the arrest. Sclafani arrested him for the assault and battery of Sanitha Grooms, with whom Cook had lived for years. The case was later waived.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Chapman says he can’t discuss whether Sclafani’s previous meeting with Cook is under investigation, or any other case specifics until the ongoing investigation is completed. Chapman says a lab in Richmond must analyze forensic evidence, which could tack time onto the investigation.
“It can be a matter of months. We hope to move things along faster,” Chapman says.
Word has traveled fast around Friendship Court, however. And according to Mary Carey, who witnessed the incident and is the president of the Friendship Court Neighborhood Association, the strong consensus among her neighbors is that Sclafani and Carper used excessive force while trying to subdue Cook.
“The way they were beating that man back and forth, it was ridiculous,” Carey says, while demonstrating the baton swings in her tidy ground-floor apartment, approximately 75 feet from the site of the shooting. “You could hear the whacks with every blow.”
Carey, a 22-year resident of Friendship Court, says she was drawn out of her apartment that night by screams coming from outside of the adjacent apartment building where Grooms, Cook’s former live-in girlfriend, was residing.
According to Carey and Lolita Smith, a former Friendship Court resident who was at the complex on the night of the shooting, Grooms had occupied the Friendship Court apartment for about a month. They say Grooms told them that she told a drunk Cook to leave her apartment out of fear that he would cause trouble and get her evicted. When he wouldn’t leave,
Grooms called the police, according to both witnesses and the department.
When the two officers arrived, the violence erupted. After the single shot was fired, the complex was swarmed by police officers, some of whom were toting pump-action shotguns, according to Smith and Carey. Smith says she whisked Grooms and her baby daughter out of the apartment amidst the chaos.
On Sunday, August 23, Friendship Court was quiet, with Smith calling the atmosphere “the calm before the storm.”
Though Carey says police detectives interviewed residents on Sunday and Monday, she says the police presence has been minimal after that initial flurry.
“They won’t have anything to do with us,” Carey says of City police.
Mayor David Brown and Kendra Hamilton, a City councilor, came to Friendship Court to speak with neighbors on Sunday, but no other meetings between residents and City officials have been scheduled.
“People are definitely upset,” Brown says. “It is a tension. To some degree, it’s unavoidable.”
However, Brown says he supports Chief Longo’s decision to keep his public comments about the shooting minimal until the facts emerge from a full investigation.
Deborah Wyatt, an attorney who has challenged local police in lawsuits, including a recently filed suit over the Department’s DNA dragnet, also thinks Longo is handling the situation correctly.
“Even despite the public clamor, I think it’s worth doing the responsible thing,” Wyatt says.
But back at Friendship Court, residents’ trust in the police force has suffered a heavy blow.
Asked how long it might take to win back trust in her community, Smith says, “It’s going to take a long time.”
“It makes you wonder,” Carey says of the shooting and the DNA dragnet. “Is it safe to walk up to a police officer and say ‘hi’ and not be afraid he’s going to pull his gun out and shoot you?”