Melissa Fuoss is now the age — 43 — that Sgt. William McEntee was when he died.
McEntee was a Kirkwood police officer. He was murdered on July 5, 2005, by Kevin Johnson. He walked up to McEntee’s police car and fired several shots, then followed McEntee after the officer drove away and shot him in the back of the head.
McEntee, a 20-year veteran of the force, left behind a wife and three children. Johnson was 19 at the time. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Nov. 29.
This is a story, Fuoss wrote recently, of “endless tragedy.†An English teacher, she is part of a group of educators — many of whom taught Johnson — who are advocating that one death is compounded by another one. They have written Gov. Mike Parson, asking him to spare Johnson’s life.
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“McEntee did not deserve to be shot,†Fuoss wrote . “I am 43, and a mother, and I cannot imagine the pain of officer McEntee’s family. Their husband, and father, and son, and brother, will never walk through the door again. Their lives became forever altered because of Kevin.
“Those seven shots destroyed more than one man’s life, and nothing will ever be able to make that okay. Kevin’s lifetime of abuse, his mental illness, his extreme trauma, and his still not fully developed teenage brain, do not excuse or justify his actions. But we cannot separate Kevin’s story from the tragedy of that day in 2005. And we cannot separate this story from racism.â€
For many people, when it comes to the death penalty, there is no gray area, only black and white. You’re either for it, as is former ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch, the man who sought the ultimate punishment for Johnson’s horrible deed. Or you’re against it, as Fuoss is, as I am, as current ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Prosecutor Wesley Bell is.
The Conviction and Incident Review Unit of Bell’s office has asked outside investigators to look into whether racial bias contributed to Johnson’s conviction of first degree murder.
The death penalty in the U.S. is fraught with examples of mistakes — of innocent men killed for a crime they didn’t commit, of a dynamic that makes it more likely Black men will receive the death penalty than white men.
There has been tragedy upon tragedy, with questions of wrongful conviction hanging over the death chamber long after a convicted murderer has died.
This is not necessarily one of those cases. Johnson did the unspeakable crime. He admits it. He’s written that he’s remorseful.
The people trying to spare his life don’t believe he’s innocent. But they also don’t believe he deserves to die.
“If killing Kevin would have brought back the police officer he killed, then the death penalty may make sense, but of course that is not even a possibility,†says Pam Stanfield.
She was Johnson’s principal in elementary school. She remembers him as a “smart kid†with “great potential†who grew up in a life of tragedy.
Johnson lived in Meacham Park, the historically Black neighborhood in Kirkwood that was often a symbol of the region’s racial injustice. His father was incarcerated. His mother was addicted to crack. Johnson’s 12-year-old brother, who had struggled with medical issues, died the day Johnson snapped and killed McEntee.
None of this justifies what he did, says Fuoss. She taught Johnson in high school, and when she learned of what Johnson had done, she immediately thought of the poem he had written in her class — of giving his infant daughter a bath and the joy it brought him.
That daughter is 19 now, the age her father was when he killed a cop. The teachers in Johnson’s life have mentored her and guided her, as they’ve communicated with Johnson during his stint in prison.
“I could not see the value behind taking another father away from his child, especially since he was the only parent she had,†Stanfield says.
In the time since Johnson was convicted, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that sending children, including those just a few months younger than Johnson when he committed his crime, to their deaths or to life in prison without parole is cruel and unusual punishment.
The ruling recognized that a child’s brain is not developed enough to fully comprehend their crimes. They can change. They can grow.
What does it say about us, Fuoss wonders in her writing, if we compound one tragedy by creating another, replacing justice with vengeance?
“I have always believed that the death penalty is wrong, but this feels deeply disturbing and personal to me. I love Kevin and am so proud of the way he has worked to heal himself and fight against injustice,†Fuoss writes. “Advocacy for Kevin’s life is not in conflict with compassion for the McEntee family and what they have lost. ... We can honor the devastating loss of McEntee’s life and believe that the death penalty is wrong, and that it is wrong for Kevin. Both things can exist together.â€