Not far from where I live a lady was killed earlier this year by a cop as she was sitting in her car in a church parking lot:
Family Wants Answers After Woman Shot, Killed By Officer
Posted on: 5:44 pm, March 14, 2012, by Shawndrea Thomas, updated on: 05:58pm, March 14, 2012
Friends and family of Alton native Patricia Cook are still in shock after hearing she was shot and killed by a Culpeper, Virginia police officer. Leaving them with more questions than answers about what happened between Patricia and the officer.
On February 9, 2012 the 54 year old was killed while sitting in her jeep near a church in Culpepper, Virginia. Lifelong friend Michelle Moulton who went to Alton High School with Patricia and says the town and family members are still in shock. Cook also known by her maiden name of Barger was a Sunday school teacher who once owned a beauty salon in Alton. She also loved crafts and working with children.
“I was heartbroken.. stunned enraged she was the sweetest quietest most genuine person you ever met I’m completely flabbergasted by it,” said Michelle Moulton.
Virginia state police say the Culpeper police officer shot Cook because she rolled up her window trapping the officer’s arm.
There are also claims that she tried to drive off dragging the officer, but two witnesses claim that’s not true.
Cooks mother Carol Weigler says her daughter was soft spoken and never had problems with the police. The question as to why she was at the Cuplepper Catholic Church is still unknown.
“We’re dealing with it the best way we know how we hope to learn sometime why he did it.”
“We still don’t know what she was doing there I was thinking she was looking for a job maybe at the daycare center,” said Carol Weigler.
There is still an ongoing debate over exactly what happened to Patricia Cook. Now all her family and friends want is to make sure the case is fully investigated.
“Whatever the results are that their honest and true and evaluated I know who she was as a person and know it was unjustified,” said Moulton
Virginia state police say the case is still open and under investigation, the unnamed officer is still on leave.
They later found the cop guilty of murder:
Former Culpeper, Va., police officer charged with murder was hired despite objections
By Justin Jouvenal, Published: June 8
A Culpeper, Va., police officer charged with killing a Sunday school teacher was hired despite the objections of superiors who said his excessive drinking and attitude made him a poor choice, prosecution filings show.
Daniel Harmon-Wright, 32, had also been disciplined as an officer, including once for forcing his way into a home and brandishing his weapon without probable cause or a warrant, according to a prosecution motion in opposition to his request for bond.
The details emerged Friday as the Gainesville resident was granted a $100,000 bond by a Culpeper judge. Harmon-Wright, who has been suspended without pay, is facing a murder charge and three other charges in the shooting of Patricia Cook, 54, of Culpeper while responding to a suspicious-person call in February.
“Two officials after a full background [check] recommended that Mr. Harmon-Wright not be hired as a police officer,” special prosecutor James Fisher told reporters after the hearing. “That was, of course, overturned.”
Harmon-Wright says he shot the woman in self-defense, opening fire after she trapped his fingers in the window of her Jeep Wrangler and began driving erratically across the parking lot of a Catholic school in Culpeper, according to his motion for bond.
Harmon-Wright claims he fired more shots into the back of the Wrangler after it made a left turn because a sunscreen blocked Cook’s front windshield and she posed a danger to pedestrians.
“She couldn’t see where she was going, and she was accelerating on a residential street,” said Daniel L. Hawes, Harmon-Wright’s attorney.
A photograph included in the prosecution’s motion shows three bullet holes in the driver’s seat of Cook’s Wrangler, including one in the headrest.
Harmon-Wright, a five-year veteran of the force, was hired in 2006. During a background check, Harmon-Wright told police officials that he had been disciplined for excessive drinking in the Marine Crops and had driven under the influence of alcohol three months before his interview, according to prosecution filings. It’s not clear why Harmon-Wright was hired despite the objections of two police officials.
Bethany Sullivan, Harmon-Wright’s mother and an administrative assistant to the former Culpeper police chief, has been charged with forging Harmon-Wright’s entrance exam for the Town of Culpeper and one of his annual reviews.
Harmon-Wright was disciplined in connection with a 2011 incident in which he chased a 15-year-old boy after a suspicious-person report, prosecution filings show. The officer started banging on the door of a home after receiving a tip that the boy lived there.
When a woman answered, Harmon-Wright demanded that she leave, prosecutors said in the filing. Harmon-Wright entered the house and brandished his gun in the face of the woman’s 18-year-old son, according to the filing.
It turned out that the boy he was chasing was not in the home and had not committed a crime, but was on his way to school, according to the filings.
www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/culpeper-va-police-officer-charged-with-murder-was-hired-despite-objections/2012/06/08/gJQAqGyjOV_story.html
) and as I got out of the car Rambo screams something at me and then pulls out his gun. I was like Whoa dude! What the heck??!! I tell him I'm deaf, I can't hear him and my window is broken so that's why I got out of the car and WHAT THE HECK, DUDE? I'm thinking this guy is NUTS!
