Crime

Former Detroit Cop Talks About Killing The Deaf Man With A Rake In 2000

August 27, 2014, 6:59 AM

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As officials continue to probe the death of an unarmed black teen that touched off a week of unrest in Ferguson, Mo., Brad Heath in USA Today examines a controversial Detroit case that, he writes, is a reminder that such shootings can cast very long shadows of anguish, mistrust and second-guessing.

The story comes in a week when federal oversight of the Detroit Police Department has ended, and city officials say the DPD is a more tightly disciplined force when it comes to using deadly force.

Detroit Police Officer David Krupinski pulled his trigger twice and watched the man crumple face-down onto the driveway, the garden rake he was holding clattering down with him.

What happened after Krupinski pulled the trigger that August afternoon in 2000 on the west side of Detroit is a blur, he said.

What happened in the seconds before is still being disputed.

Almost instantly, the shooting turned Krupinski into the face of a police force already besieged by complaints that its officers were too quick to kill, particularly when white officers encountered black suspects. But Krupinski, who is white, said in his first extended interview about the shooting that he did not learn why this shooting stood out among dozens of others until he turned on his television the next day: The man he had killed, Errol Shaw Sr., 39, was black, armed only with a rake, and was deaf and mute, unable to hear officers’ commands.


Read more:  USA Today


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