Missouri an order of execution for Kevin Johnson back in August of this year

JEFFERSON CITY — Opponents of the death penalty called on Gov. Mike Parson Tuesday to cancel the scheduled execution of a man who killed a Kirkwood police officer in 2005.

In an event at the Capitol, the Missouri state chapter of the NAACP and members of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty said Kevin Johnson’s execution by lethal injection on Nov. 29 should be called off because he was 19 at the time he shot and killed police Officer William McEntee.

In addition to his age, advocates said Johnson’s childhood was filled with physical and mental abuse. A jury at his first trial rejected the first degree murder charge. At the second trial, they said former St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch worked to eliminate potential jurors who were Black. Johnson is Black.

Among those speaking at an event in the Capitol Rotunda was Johnson’s daughter, Khorry Ramey, who said her father got to meet and hold her 2-month-old son recently.

“It was the most beautiful moment in my life. My dad was so happy,” said Ramey, who was 2 when her father went to prison. “He’s not a bad person. He just made a terrible mistake.”

Nimrod Chapel Jr., president of the Missouri State Conference of the NAACP said Johnson’s life should be spared.

“No one is here today saying Kevin Johnson needs to go home. Our culture of death has got to stop,” Chapel said.

The group delivered 20,000 signatures Tuesday asking Parson to commute Johnson’s death sentence to life without parole.

“We don’t believe killing Kevin will solve anything,” said Michelle Smith of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

Johnson, who is being held at the state prison in Bonne Terre, also has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene after the Missouri Supreme Court declined to grant a stay.

McEntee was on patrol in Kirkwood’s Meacham Park neighborhood on the day he was gunned down on Alsobrook Street. McEntee was 43 years old. He was the father of three and was on the force for nearly 20 years.

McEntee was in his car talking to a 13-year-old boy about a fireworks disturbance when Johnson, now 37, approached the passenger’s side of the car, fired several shots and walked away.

The wounded McEntee drove off but crashed about 200 feet away. With help from neighbors, while others called 911, McEntee was able to get out of the car. He was on his hands and knees when Johnson walked up and shot him twice more — in the back and in the back of the head. In all, McEntee was hit seven times.

Officials said Johnson ambushed McEntee in anger because he felt police officers hadn’t done enough to help when his younger brother collapsed and died of a congenital heart condition earlier that day.

In his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, attorneys argued that he shouldn’t have faced a possible death penalty sentence because he was not emotionally mature.

“A late adolescent of 18 to 20 years has the intellectual maturity of an adult but the emotional maturity and response inhibition of a younger teenager,” the court filing states. “Those limitations are all the more important in Johnson’s case. Johnson has a history of psychiatric hospitalization, a suicide attempt at the age of 14, a major depressive disorder, and auditory hallucinations.”

McCulloch, who left office in 2018, earlier told the Post-Dispatch that he plans to attend the execution in person.

In August, he scoffed at suggestions that his office had a racial bias. In an interview with the Post-Dispatch, McCulloch said his office weighed each homicide case to determine if it merited the death penalty. McCulloch said that review wasn’t based on the race of the victim or suspect.