Cpl. Michael Brookman was watch commander on a very busy
Wednesday night, police-wise. He and one other officer were on a
stake out at Village Avante – potential gang problems, he said. Two
other officers were in the north and the south of the city.
Cpl. Michael Brookman was watch commander on a very busy Wednesday night, police-wise. He and one other officer were on a stake out at Village Avante – potential gang problems, he said. Two other officers were in the north and the south of the city.
“We were spread throughout the city,” Brookman said. “Nobody was on the east side.”
When the call came in just before 8pm described as “kids pulling someone from a car and holding a gun to their head,” all four officers headed for the east side neighborhood, fast.
“We all got there as quickly as possible but Officer Scott Silva arrived first,” Brookman said. He praised Silva for making a “high-risk car stop” while he was there alone.
By the time Brookman arrived on the scene, Silva and Officer Ken Howard had the three teens prone on the ground, getting them up one at a time.
“One of the boys had a replica gun shoved down the front of his pants and, if he had reached for the gun, we would have taken him out,” Brookman said, “without a doubt.”
It looked and sounded like a drug deal, Brookman said. Besides the guns, they had plastic bags of white powder (flour as it turned out), were wearing beanies and carrying heavy-duty Maglite flashlights.
Brookman said he talked to the parents, including the father of the boy involved in the Jackson School incident last April where he also came close to being shot by police.
“Their initial reaction was concern for their sons,” he said. “But I also explained that we respond to the threat as we see it. It is easier to de-escalate when we go in than to escalate.”
In April the father had asked for police to return the confiscated replicas. Brookman said he doubts the father will ask this time.
“I think the parents have learned a lesson,” he said. “One mother was just furious with her son.”
“I’m glad it turned out the way it did,” Brookman said. “If things had been different it would have been bad for the kids, the parents and the officers. And we would have to live with that.”
The watch commander had high praise for his officers.
“Silva and Howard used remarkable restraint,” Brookman said.
