http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/local/12194075.htm
I was getting back on Patco to get back to Philly from Camden and this girl is spouting off about this. A naked guy tried to get into a cop car ( guy had no weapons ) and the cop shot him. Shot him many times, and the guy got into the car. I looked it up and damn. Then they updated to tell more about it, and it sounds sadder.
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Naked man who was slain by cop was bipolar
Jevon Lampkin took the PATCO High-Speed Line into Philadelphia to go shopping, his mother said.
She doesn't know how he ended up naked in Center City, and she doesn't know what happened between Lampkin and the police officer with whom he wrestled.
But she believes that her son shouldn't have been shot.
"They could have maced him or they could have hit him with their nightsticks," said Sharon Lampkin. "I would take two black eyes over his death."
Jevon Lampkin, 23, died early Wednesday from gunshot wounds suffered during a bizarre encounter with police on Tuesday.
Police sources say the confrontation began about 4:30 p.m., when Lt. Michael Kopecki, heading down Market Street in his patrol car, saw a naked, agitated man at the corner of 9th Street, approaching passers-by.
Kopecki pulled over and called police radio. Before he could get out of his car, the man - identified by police as Lampkin - came up, reached in the driver's-side window, and got both of his hands on Kopecki's gun, the sources said.
In an effort to get the gun, the man struck Kopecki in the face and started climbing in through the window, the sources said.
Kopecki got control of his gun, and fired twice, hitting the man, who fell out of the car window onto the street.
As Kopecki got out of his car, the man attacked him and then jumped into the car and tried to get it in gear.
The sources said that Kopecki, worried that the man might injure someone with the car, fired at him several more times.
Despite his wounds, the man was able to put the car in gear. It traveled nearly a block, careening off another car before crashing into a NJ Transit bus near 8th Street. Kopecki and a woman in the car were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.
"He was having problems," Sharon Lampkin said of her son. "He was not acting like himself."
Within the past few weeks, she said, Jevon Lampkin was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was so recent that treatment had not been set, nor the medications prescribed.
"He would have three bad days and one fine day," she said.
But Lampkin was never in trouble with the law and he had never been violent, his mother said.
She said he graduated from Eastern Regional High School in Voorhees, N.J., in 2001, and, since then, had worked in construction, as a gas-station attendant and as a handler at a meat-packing factory. He was to begin working as a clerk at a post office at the end of the month, she said.
Jevon Lampkin was an aspiring rapper who started writing rhymes when he was 10, his mother said. She said he was always entertaining his friends.
"He would make everyone laugh," said Sharon Lampkin, a Mount Airy native who moved to New Jersey when Jevon was born.
Initial reports from police listed the naked assailant as an unidentified man who was possibly homeless.
"I don't want people to think he was a homeless bum with no family or anything," said Sharon Lampkin.
Jevon Lampkin lived with his grandparents in Berlin, N.J. He has a 19-year-old sister and a large family, the mother said.
Police notified Sharon Lampkin of her son's death about 11 p.m. Wednesday - 22 hours after he died at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
"I was hysterical," she said. "I dropped the phone."
She drove from her home in New Jersey to the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office and convinced the person on duty to let her identify her son despite the facility being closed.
"I'll never forget that picture," Lampkin said.
I was getting back on Patco to get back to Philly from Camden and this girl is spouting off about this. A naked guy tried to get into a cop car ( guy had no weapons ) and the cop shot him. Shot him many times, and the guy got into the car. I looked it up and damn. Then they updated to tell more about it, and it sounds sadder.
-----------------------
Naked man who was slain by cop was bipolar
Jevon Lampkin took the PATCO High-Speed Line into Philadelphia to go shopping, his mother said.
She doesn't know how he ended up naked in Center City, and she doesn't know what happened between Lampkin and the police officer with whom he wrestled.
But she believes that her son shouldn't have been shot.
"They could have maced him or they could have hit him with their nightsticks," said Sharon Lampkin. "I would take two black eyes over his death."
Jevon Lampkin, 23, died early Wednesday from gunshot wounds suffered during a bizarre encounter with police on Tuesday.
Police sources say the confrontation began about 4:30 p.m., when Lt. Michael Kopecki, heading down Market Street in his patrol car, saw a naked, agitated man at the corner of 9th Street, approaching passers-by.
Kopecki pulled over and called police radio. Before he could get out of his car, the man - identified by police as Lampkin - came up, reached in the driver's-side window, and got both of his hands on Kopecki's gun, the sources said.
In an effort to get the gun, the man struck Kopecki in the face and started climbing in through the window, the sources said.
Kopecki got control of his gun, and fired twice, hitting the man, who fell out of the car window onto the street.
As Kopecki got out of his car, the man attacked him and then jumped into the car and tried to get it in gear.
The sources said that Kopecki, worried that the man might injure someone with the car, fired at him several more times.
Despite his wounds, the man was able to put the car in gear. It traveled nearly a block, careening off another car before crashing into a NJ Transit bus near 8th Street. Kopecki and a woman in the car were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.
"He was having problems," Sharon Lampkin said of her son. "He was not acting like himself."
Within the past few weeks, she said, Jevon Lampkin was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was so recent that treatment had not been set, nor the medications prescribed.
"He would have three bad days and one fine day," she said.
But Lampkin was never in trouble with the law and he had never been violent, his mother said.
She said he graduated from Eastern Regional High School in Voorhees, N.J., in 2001, and, since then, had worked in construction, as a gas-station attendant and as a handler at a meat-packing factory. He was to begin working as a clerk at a post office at the end of the month, she said.
Jevon Lampkin was an aspiring rapper who started writing rhymes when he was 10, his mother said. She said he was always entertaining his friends.
"He would make everyone laugh," said Sharon Lampkin, a Mount Airy native who moved to New Jersey when Jevon was born.
Initial reports from police listed the naked assailant as an unidentified man who was possibly homeless.
"I don't want people to think he was a homeless bum with no family or anything," said Sharon Lampkin.
Jevon Lampkin lived with his grandparents in Berlin, N.J. He has a 19-year-old sister and a large family, the mother said.
Police notified Sharon Lampkin of her son's death about 11 p.m. Wednesday - 22 hours after he died at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
"I was hysterical," she said. "I dropped the phone."
She drove from her home in New Jersey to the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office and convinced the person on duty to let her identify her son despite the facility being closed.
"I'll never forget that picture," Lampkin said.
