Kevin Johnson: Monster, hero or VICTIM?

Monster in the Media, Hero in the Streets: the Saga of Kevin Johnson

Before his trial, before the release of any evidence to the public, the mainstream media convicted Kevin Johnson of killing a cop. Why does the "innocent until proven guilty" standard only apply to police who shoot and kill people, and not the other way around? (See Jeremy Robinson article in current Confluence.)

"The news gets all of their information from the police. So therefore most, if not all of it, is going to try and make me out to be a monster," Kevin Johnson told Confluence in an exclusive interview done through the mail. "I am not a monster, not a troublemaker, nor a 'thug' or a 'gangster'. I am a respectable young man," Johnson wrote.

A little background first: In July 2005, 12-year-old Joseph "Bam-Bam" Long collapsed on the floor of his house in Meacham Park, a historic African-American community in south Kirkwood. Police, slow to respond to the family's 911 calls, finally arrived and neglected to even check Bam-Bam's pulse. According to witnesses who testified at Kevin's trial last Spring, they instead used the opportunity to search the house for Kevin Johnson. Upon arrival, paramedics arrived and pronounced Bam-Bam dead. Hours later, McEntee, one of the cops who was present as Bam-Bam lay dying, died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds several blocks from the youth's house.

Authorities swarmed Meacham Park, kicking in doors and terrorizing residents. A few days later, desperate to blame someone, police arrested Bam-Bam's older brother, Kevin Johnson. At the trial, Prosecutor Robert McCulloch demonized Johnson and pushed jurors to convict him on a first-degree murder charge and give him the death sentence.

The media keeps reminding us that the victim, Kirkwood Police Officer William McEntee, was the father of three children. They do little if anything to humanize Kevin Johnson, implying that he is a murderer with no conscience. The fact that Johnson is also a parent, is educated and well-spoken is never mentioned.

In his letter, Johnson gives a very different perspective of McEntee: "He was a racist bully of a cop. He used to harass a lot of the kids in Meacham Park. In the summer of 2004 he along with one of his sidekicks, Chris Nelson, jumped a friend of mine." According to Johnson, the cops approached him and a group of Black youths at about 11:00 that night and told them to turn down the loud music they played. The youth complied, but that was not good enough for the cops, who told them to go home. This was before curfew--the youths were not breaking any laws, and they told the cops they did not have to disperse, Johnson recounted in his letter. "McEntee grabbed for my friend, who was 16 at the time, but my friend dodged it," Johnson wrote. "Another friend who was 19 stood in front of the 16-year-old for protection. McEntee grabbed him by the neck, but my friend yanked away. McEntee slapped him and pulled out a can of pepper spray and sprayed him. We all got mad and surrounded the officers. Nelson pulled out his gun and pointed it at a 15-year old who had just walked up. McEntee swung at my 19-year old friend and wrestled him to the ground with punches and kicks." Johnson said his friend was charged with assaulting an officer, threatening a college scholarship he was to receive.

"The cops are brutal, but the citizen always gets the charge," Johnson concluded.

At Johnson's trial, McCulloch alleged that the defendant tried to arrange the murder of key witnesses who would testify against him. Authorities allege that a prisoner who had been sharing a cellblock with Johnson approached them and said that he had intentionally gone about trying to gain Johnson's trust. After doing so, he planned to find dirt on him, which the snitch could then use against Kevin in order to reduce his own sentence. In court it came out that this prisoner had been doing this since the late '80s, so it's hard to know whether the snitch created this situation on his own accord or was prompted by outside sources. He said that after gaining Johnson's trust and Kevin finding out he would soon be paroled, Kevin asked him to have two witnesses taken care of. The prosecution could not prove that Kevin ever tried to contact the snitch after the prisoner was released. The snitch also alleged that Johnson gave him a piece of paper with the address of one of the witnesses to be taken care of. In court during the trial, the paper, shown on a projector, showed not a single print that matched Kevin's.

Why Should We Care About Kevin Johnson?

At his trial last April 2, the judge declared a mistrial after Johnson admitted on the witness stand that he shot and killed McEntee. He will be tried again in a St. Louis County Court starting October 31st.

Johnson explained to Confluence, "I admitted to pulling the trigger but I didn't admit to first degree murder...A lot of people think that just because you kill someone, that it's automatically first degree, but this wasn't. It's possible for people to flip out and shoot someone. That qualifies as 'sudden passion'," which is murder two, not punishable by the death penalty.

Friends of Kevin who witnessed the trial said that he had probably reached a point where he felt that his lawyers were not trying to get him acquitted. They speculated that Johnson took the stand and said the only thing that was going to save him from certain death in prison. Murder two gives him a chance of parole in ten years or if sentenced to life, a possible release in 25 and a half years.

Johnson has a four-year-old daughter he would like to be able to help raise. Last September 8, the mother of his daughter, Dana Tiara Ramey, was shot and killed in Kirkwood, allegedly by an ex-boyfriend. Johnson wrote, "That night, Officer Jackie Tabens and the wife of William McEntee, Mary McEntee, were riding around Meacham Park giving my mother and daughter the 'finger' and yelling out, 'Fuck you!' My family made a complaint, but I'm sure you already know that was overlooked."

Ignored in all this is the larger context: the constant harassment of black youths by police. We note with irony that, according to the Post-Dispatch, McEntee was shot while he was questioning (read: harassing) some Meacham Park youths about using fireworks. Not mentioned is the State's war on Black youth: one in three urban African-Americans between 16 and 25 is on parole, probation or in jail. It is a denial of 400 years of racist oppression on this continent: slavery, lynchings of innocent black men, segregation and the exclusion on African-Americans from economic opportunities.

We should care about Kevin Johnson because he dared to fight back against a racist police state (we leave it to our readers to decide if his actions were appropriate). For anyone who cares (or dares?) to read between the lines, Johnson's case exposes the racism and brutality of institutionalized police, the criminal injustice system and prisons. It points out yet again that the police's main job is to aid the rich against workers and the poor. Need we remind you that Meacham Park is a poor and working class community in the midst of Kirkwood, a white, upper middle class suburb?

Kevin Johnson cared about his little brother. He is a human being deserving of more than State sanctioned "justice".

"Friends of Kevin!" supplied some of the information for this story. Pick up their publication, "The Case For Kevin Johnson," available for free around town.