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Kit LeBlanc
17th April 2002, 18:02
From Calibre Press Newsline:

"Law enforcement sadly lost another brother when Little Rock Officer Jack Cooper, 34, was shot Friday, Feb. 1, by an apparent EDP (that's "emotionally disturbed person" - Kit). He had 11 years on the job.

Cooper, along with officer Johnny Gravett, responded to the office of a Little Rock apartment complex regarding a report that 28-year-old William Clack had a knife and was acting strangely. The suspect claimed that he was a "vampire killer."

"He was talking out of his head and said his wife and child had been killed by vampires," said Lt. Terry Hastings, department spokesperson.

The officers calmly urged Clack, who was sitting on a couch, to come outside, but he refused.

"They talked to him for quite a while," Little Rock Police Detective Kevin Simpson told Newsline. But it didn't work and the officers had to grab him to escort him out. When they did, the 5-foot-10-inch Clack began struggling. They tried subduing him with pepper spray, but it was ineffective.

"Even though William Clack was considerably smaller than Officer Cooper and Officer Gravett, he seemed to have unusual strength, as we have learned that an EDP sometimes displays," said Simpson.

Clack somehow was able to knock officer Cooper (who is about 6 foot tall) onto his back, which is astonishing because Cooper was a strong man and could bench-press over 300 pounds, Simpson adderd.

While on top of Cooper, the suspect was able to grab the officer's .40 caliber pistol from its holster and fire one round that struck Cooper in the shoulder.

Officer Gravett then shot Clack once in the side before his pistol "stove piped," Simpson told Calibre Press. The suspect got one more shot off that struck the downed officer in the head below his left ear. Officer Gravett cleared the spent cartridge from the chamber and fired two more rounds into Clack's chest killing him.

Cooper was rushed to the hospital and was placed on life support, where he died at 10a.m. the next day.

This tragic incident was "a one in a million chance," said Little Rock Police Sgt. Terry Hastings. Officers are trained yearly, and sometimes monthly, on how to retain their weapons in a volatile situation, he said, and Little Rock officers are equipped with holsters that are angled so that only the officer can draw the weapon up and out.

"The holster we carry is a holdter that's designed to precent a suspect from getting a weapon away, but it's not a 100 percent sure thing."

"This extremely tragic situation, at the hands of an apparently deranged subject, reminds us of a varieoty of training points and safety iussues, that be recognizing and implementing can only only honor the memory and sacrifice of our fallen brother."

kenjgood
20th April 2002, 04:40
Sobering, tragic.....pisses me off. I hate to see the good guys go down.

Again this hightlights the need for proper DT training that highlights the need for balance, grappling and weapons retention.

Easy to armchair quarterback, but what strikes me, is what the heck was the second officer doing?

Kit LeBlanc
20th April 2002, 12:52
Problem is we don't have enough information. If he was in the room, watched what was happening, and say couldn't get his gun out of the holster...bad. But so many other things could have happened that just aren't in the article, he may have been in another room at the time, talking to a witness, or went to get the car or who knows what.

I don't think we have enough detail on the fight either....guy could have had the officer's gun out without either of them knowing it until the first shot was fired. It has happened before.....

joe yang
20th April 2002, 20:35
Sounds to me like the second officer was trying to clear a jamb, doing a tap-rack drill or a slide sweep, like he probably trained to do. Probably the correct response too. Yes, we don't have all the information, but we know the actor overpowered one officer and got his gun. To go hand to hand or clear the jamb is a choice the surviving officer has to live with. Looks like a good call to me. Is there an implication he was standing around? The whole scenario could have happened in less time than it takes to retell it. My prayers for the family of the fallen officer and to his partner.

Todd Prosser
21st April 2002, 08:23
Have to agree with Kit. The article only gives a "readers digest" version of what happened. Many times actions of others are left out and only the significant actions are listed.
I had a friend that was in a similar situation, where he saved the other officers life. The press only said the one officer was down being beaten and then my friend shot the attacker in the head.
What they left out was the attacker grabbed the other officer and rammed their head through a wall and then jumped on their back, they were chest down, and began trying to remove the officers firearm. My friend began punching, elbow striking and kicking the attacker to get him off the other officer. When that did not work and the attacker began to choke the other officer while still trying to remove the duty weapon. The attacker was about to kill the other officer and remove their weapon from the holster when my friend then stopped the attacker with a contact shot to the temple.
Given the news story he just walked up and shot the person. In real life he was struggling for several minutes to save a fellow officer from a guy hyped up on drugs, whose co-workers all said was "a nice guy." :rolleyes:

Todd Prosser

Kit LeBlanc
21st April 2002, 15:44
It's funny, you never realize how much the press gets wrong until they report on an incident YOU were involved in and leave out key details...

...or when they report on weapons or what have you and say things like "the suspect presented a semi-automatic revolver."