9-18-2023 – A Word to the Wise – After a while, your heart gets hardened to all the violence. It is not that you do not care rather just a sense of helplessness over what you see.
Element 342, May 5, 1984.
Very sad evening.
Shortly after leaving Southeast station, the emergency signal is emitted over the radio! “342 authorized code 3 on a shooting 3033 Grand.” The red lights light up passing cars, and the siren wails its mournful tone once again.
Silence rules as we both try to picture the location. “342, the suspect is a black male, 6’1, with a blue shirt and blue jeans.” Suspect has fled the scene after shooting his four-year-old daughter with a shotgun. ‘342 received.’ Pulling up to 3033 Grand, we hear cover elements approaching. Walking up to the porch, we first hear the screaming mother and then observe a young child lying in the living room covered with blood. The scene is indescribable.
Tim pulls the mother aside, and I kneel beside the little girl compressing a wound in her chest. Blood still streams from everywhere.
The ambulance pulls, and two medics run up, and they start first aid. The little child is immediately loaded into the ambulance.
Tim gets the information from the hysterical mother, and we go to the car.
He says that the mother and father had been arguing over money, and the father went and got his shotgun to threaten the mother. The suspect stepped out on the front porch, and his wife starts screaming at him again. He turned and fired through the front door striking the child. Throws the shotgun down and runs, then fleeing the scene on foot.
We start a street-by-street search. At the intersection of Park Row and Trunk, we observe a black male fitting the general description barefoot walking in the street. We stopped beside him and got out.
I observed blood on his shirt and asked his name. He said, Leroy Reeves.
He admits that he shot the child. I tell him he is under arrest and start to cuff him. He admitted that he and his wife had been fighting over money and that he went to the bedroom and returned with his shotgun.
A radio check confirmed a long arrest record for drugs, burglary, and assault.
We take him back to the scene to get further information from his wife and confirmation that he is the person. Driving up, she sees him in the backseat of the squad car and starts running towards the squad car, screaming for us to kill him, that he did not deserve to live. We leave.
For the first time and the only time I ever remember, I get out my Miranda card and quietly read him his rights, and then I asked him if he had shot the child. He again admits that he had. We booked him into jail, for attempted murder and injury to a child.
The child died later that evening.
I reflect later on the death of the child. I wish I could have prevented or intervened before her death. It is a sad loss. No doubt the man will reflect for years to come on the instant he pulled the trigger and ended the life of his baby girl. Such a senseless argument.
There is a lesson here about anger and how easily it gets out of control.
