Black and Blue

In short, the account the witnesses give me is different from the police version on all the major points. J.R. was not in the Escort but hanging out with friends on the street. He took off running when men with guns jumped out of a car. The cops never identified themselves. J.R. had no gun. The cops stomped him when he was down.

Somebody is clearly lying. It's either the police or the witnesses.

Besides the basic highlights of the version given earlier, the police department isn't saying much. And Nels Moss, a former city prosecutor now representing the police officers involved, says he's afraid that if police reveal any more details, it will result in "the molding of the stories" by the witnesses. Suffice it to know, says Moss, that J.R. jumped out of the red car, and he fired first. "The long and short of it is, he shot at 'em, they returned fire," he says. "He had a gun, he came from the car, he shot at them -- nobody kicked him. A gun was kicked out of his hand, but nobody kicked him."

As is routine in all shooting incidents, homicide detectives are investigating the events of April 3, says Lt. Col. Raymond Lauer, deputy chief for the Bureau of Investigations. He says that none of the witnesses has come forward to the investigators. Until they do, he says, the investigation will not be complete and police will not reveal any further information. This has led to an odd stalemate: The witnesses will not talk to the police, and the investigation won't be completed until they talk to the police.

Lauer says he understands that many people don't trust the police, but he wants them to know that "the homicide detectives that work for me are investigating the incident, and those aren't the people involved in the shooting. If they have fears about coming here, I'll meet them on neutral ground; I'll be there to witness their testimony."

Meanwhile, pertinent questions remain unanswered, such as: Where, exactly, did police find the gun that J.R. allegedly used to fire on them? Were any of the bullets fired from that gun found in the vicinity? Has anyone, besides the officers involved, told police they saw J.R. with a gun? Just how many shots did police officers fire? Where did the bruises on J.R.'s face come from? Was anyone arrested or charged in the undercover drug buy? Has the red Ford Escort ever been seen again? Who were the officers involved, and has any of them been involved in shooting incidents before?

Brad Kessler, the lawyer hired by J.R.'s mother, is a former St. Louis public defender and one of the more prominent criminal defense lawyers in town. I have known him as a friend for the past 10 years. He acknowledges that the cops "were not up there just to shoot anyone who's on the street." He has a theory about what may have happened: It wasn't J.R. firing at the police; it was other police officers at the other end of the block. "They catch J.R. in a crossfire," says Kessler. "The police had already started shooting from Harris, west down Carter, so it is clear that they're taking fire, but the only people they're taking fire from are the police that are down that way, and then they start shooting back. There's no reason that the police should be shooting at each other, and it's clear that that's what's happening; it's clear that they're directly in each other's line of fire."

He and Dan Diemer, another lawyer working with him on this case, have interviewed 11 witnesses, most of whom have agreed to testify in court if necessary. But Kessler and Diemer have been given no information from the police department, nor are they entitled to any of it yet. On May 18, a hearing will be held at which J.R. will either be certified as an adult and prosecuted or remanded to juvenile court.

Moss accuses Kessler of discouraging the witnesses from talking to the police. "Here's the bottom line," says Moss. "He has talked to them; he doesn't want them to talk to the police or me. This is just getting his case together." Kessler's business cards are all over the neighborhood, says Moss, and some people have told investigators that Kessler told them they don't have to talk to the police.

"I didn't produce them, you know -- these are people who came to us," Kessler responds. "We went up there, a couple of white guys walking around, and people, most of whom realized we weren't police, coming up to us telling us what happened. This is not a situation where we paid people. These aren't our people. I can't tell them not to talk to police. I don't represent them. I don't control them.

"Of course, what do you expect the police to say? They've created a situation, and they need another scapegoat," Kessler says. "They've already made J.R. a scapegoat; now I have to be a scapegoat for why they can't do an investigation. But they've created a problem way before this case. They created a situation where these people won't come to them. They created a situation where these people don't trust the police. I didn't create that."