Details emerge in Police Shooting of Kerry Von Reese Cook

Charlottesville police released new details Tuesday about what they say happened when an officer shot a man after a struggle at an apartment in Friendship Court. City Police Chief Timothy J. Longo said the woman who called police to her apartment Saturday night later told authorities that Kerry Von Reese Cook had entered her home uninvited and started cursing and damaging property. The woman, who was not identified, said she left the apartment to call police and waited for their arrival, Longo said. City officers William Sclafani and Jeremy Carper entered the apartment and found Cook, 31, in a bedroom closet, Longo reported. The officers ordered him to surrender, but he resisted and a violent confrontation ensued, Longo said. "The struggle begins at that point and literally goes throughout the apartment," he said. Both officers applied "escalating levels of force," he said, declining to specify what tactics they used to restrain Cook before he was shot. Sclafani shot Cook once in the abdomen with a .45-caliber round, and Longo said he had no reason to believe the shooting was accidental. [more ]