One Year Later: Police Shooting Involving Cocoa Teens Highlights the Urgent Need for Police Reform

This article was published on November 12, 2021, in the Orlando Sentinel. See the response here.

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the deaths of Florida teens Sincere Pierce, 18,  and Angelo “A.J” Crooms, 16, who were both shot and killed after a traffic stop on November 13, 2020. 

Deputies attempted to pull the teens over after they were spotted driving a car that was suspected of being stolen. Law enforcement’s dashcam footage shows deputies ordering the teens to stop the vehicle while they were backing out of a driveway, when the teens instead tried to drive forward after backing out, deputies fired multiple shots at the car, fatally striking both teens. It was later determined that the car that A.J was driving was not the stolen vehicle officers were looking for.

Angelo Crooms, 16 and Sincere Pierce, 18.

Source: https://www.change.org/p/brevard-county-sherrif-s-office-justice-for-aj-and-justice-for-spud

While Pierce and Crooms aren't here to tell their side of the story, at best these two teens were killed for failing to comply fast enough, at worst they were killed over a simple misunderstanding. Two kids, who were in fact not driving a stolen car, did not deserve to die that day. There was no imminent threat to the officers or another person. Tactical patience and better communication could have created the critical space between a routine traffic stop and the tragic death of two teenagers. 

Earlier this year, state prosecutors reported that they have decided against pressing charges against the Brevard county deputy, stating that it was “highly reasonable” for the deputies to draw their firearms immediately after exiting their patrol car. However, this tactic has been highly criticized by attorneys and activists across the U.S.

A year later, fatal police encounters continue to erode trust between law enforcement and their communities, paradoxically making it more likely that innocent people, like Pierce and Crooms, are reluctant to cooperate with police and are killed as a result. 

We owe it to the families of these two teens, and so many in similar situations, to hold the police to a higher standard that compels them to exhaust a full range of de-escalation and compliance techniques prior to ever firing a weapon. 

It’s vital that tactical training is complemented with training in “soft skills'' that create a critical space between the first encounter with a suspect and the decision to use lethal force. It’s in this critical space that law enforcement can effectively collect information that can prevent a violent encounter altogether and mean the difference between life and death. 

The vast majority of interactions with the public can and should be resolved peacefully, yet current training and tactics emphasize physical force and restraint over communication, de-escalation, and tactical patience. This failure to prepare police for the breadth of their duties contributes to over 1,000 fatal police shootings each year and growing distrust between law enforcement and their communities. 

When you are equipped with nothing but hammers, it's no wonder that every problem, suspect, and fleeing teenager, looks like a nail. If we don’t train our law enforcement differently, we will continue to see these terrible outcomes.