On this
date, June 29, 2010, Officer David Lamar Curtis and Jeffrey Alan Kocab of Tampa
Police Department, Florida, were both killed in the line of duty. Let us honor
these two fallen cops and thank God that some justice was served, as the cop
killer had been sentenced to death.
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Officers David Curtis, left, and Jeffrey
Kocab [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.officer.com/news/11336399/widow-of-tampa-officer-forgives-cop-killer-asks-for-death-penalty]
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Let us
hear from their family members who were left behind:
INTERNET
SOURCE: http://www.officer.com/news/11336399/widow-of-tampa-officer-forgives-cop-killer-asks-for-death-penalty
Widow
Forgives Cop-Killer, Asks For Death Penalty
Elaine Silvestrini
Source: Tampa Tribune, Fla.
Created:
Sara Kocab
forgave Dontae Morris for murdering her husband before requesting he be put to
death.
TAMPA, Fla. -- Sara Kocab forgave
Dontae Morris on Thursday for murdering her husband, but then asked a judge to
sentence Morris to death.
Kelly Curtis said Morris played
football with her brother, and she has pictures at home of the two playing
together. Morris was good at football, she said.
"He had the chance to
make something of himself," said the widow of David Curtis, one of two police
officers Morris shot to death during a traffic stop on June 29, 2010. "He could have gone far with football. He chose the life
that he is living right now ... His father was killed when he was a child and
he delivered that same fate to my children."
The two widows and other family
members were permitted to address Circuit Judge William Fuente in a hearing
held to help him decide whether to go along with a jury recommendation that
Morris be sentenced to death for the murders of officers Curtis and Jeffrey
Kocab.
Defense lawyer Byron Hileman
vehemently objected to the statements and interrupted some victims to object
when they addressed Morris instead of the judge.
Although Fuente said the victims have
the constitutional right to speak, the judge also said he is not permitted to
take their statements into account in making his decision. "That's the
law," Fuente said.
Both widows previously gave victim
impact statements in front of the jury that recommended in November that Morris
be sentenced to death.
On Thursday, they gave briefer
statements.
"I will always be
heartbroken for the loss of my husband," Kocab said, and then told Morris, "I am not angry at you and I forgive you for killing my
husband." Then she addressed Fuente: "I
ask you to sentence him to death for the three murders that he has been
convicted of by a jury of his peers."
Morris is already serving a life term
for his conviction of the murder of another man, Rodney Jones, weeks before the
officers' slayings. He faces two other murder trials in the killings of Harold
Wright and Derek Anderson.
As Kocab made the comment about the
three murders, Hileman again rose to strenuously object.
But Sara Kocab had finished. "I'm
done," she said quietly as she turned to go back to her seat.
Kocab earlier noted testimony during
the trial that Morris had said in jail that he repented.
"In repenting, you take
responsibility and accept consequences" for your actions, she said.
"I expect that if he had asked Jesus for forgiveness, he would take responsibility
and plead guilty... It is not about the words that he says, but the condition
of his heart."
Jeffrey Kocab's mother and sister also
spoke Thursday.
Kocab's mother, Sandra, said
"angry words that aren't part of my normal vocabulary scream out" in
her mind when it comes to Morris. "But I refuse to lower my standards and
use those words."
Instead, she described the two
officers as "enthusiastic, energetic, fun living and dedicated sons,
husbands, brothers, Christians and friends." She quoted Nelson Mandela and
the Bible about love.
"No one is born hating another
person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his
religion," she said, quoting Mandela. "People must learn to hate, and
if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love."
Sandra Kocab said she felt sorry for
Morris because "You were never taught to love."
But she said she's not ready to
forgive Morris. "Maybe in time, but not now."
Kocab's sister, Stephanie, told Morris
he had "stopped all my dreams" that the brother she called Jake will
be there for her when she gets married and has children. "I have
nightmares of Jake suffering," she said. "And what bothers me the
most is I wasn't there for him."
Kelly Curtis told Fuente she didn't
want to "yell and scream" at Morris. "He's
taken enough from me and from my family. I'm not going to give him the
satisfaction to take more from my life... We're here today because of his
choices. He made the decision to take my husband ... I had to comfort my crying
4-year-old the other night. He kept saying over and over again, 'I wish I had a
father like everyone else.' Because of Dontae Morris, he doesn't."
INTERNET
SOURCE: http://www.officer.com/news/11336399/widow-of-tampa-officer-forgives-cop-killer-asks-for-death-penalty?page=2
And David Curtis' mother, Cindy
Warren, said Morris didn't show any remorse during the trial, even when
watching the dash cam video of the murders.
"He showed absolutely
nothing,"
she said. "It was reported that he repented in
jail, but that was a lie. If that was true that he actually repented, he would
have pleaded guilty and spared us this trial. ... To me, lying about repentance
is as bad as murder. I think he should ask this court to put him to death
immediately without any hesitation and he should repent for his sins ...
anything short of this would be totally unacceptable. And I think he should do
the right thing for the first time in his life."
But Morris chose not to speak at the
hearing. Fuente told him he had a right to address the court, but he said no.
The defense presented only one witness
Thursday, Dr. Valerie McClain, who testified Morris has a "limited
intellect and to some extent, limited adaptive skills." McClain said she
previously determined that while Morris was in jail, he suffered from
depression with psychotic features.
She said she also examined Morris when
he was refusing to cooperate in the preparation of a defense against the death
penalty, and she found his reasons to be rational -- that he wanted to spare
his mother and sister through the stress of testifying on his behalf.
But McClain said she was able to find
no other evidence of anything that could legally weigh against a death
sentence.
The hearing is scheduled to resume
Friday when the prosecution is expected to present an expert to rebut McClain's
testimony.
Copyright 2014 - Tampa Tribune, Fla.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
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