(PatrioticPost.com)- Tuesday, Missouri executed the man convicted of ambushing and killing a St. Louis-area police officer in 2005.
Kevin Johnson, 37, died from a lethal injection at the state prison in Bonne Terre. It was Missouri’s second execution this year. Two additional executions are scheduled in Missouri in the first few weeks of 2023.
While Johnson’s attorneys did not deny that he killed officer William McEntee in 2005, they argued that he received a death sentence in part because he is black. However, Governor Mike Parson and the courts refused to stop Johnson’s execution.
Officer McEntee was a 20-year veteran of the Kirkwood police department. On July 5, 2005, the 43-year-old McEntee was among the officers sent to Johnson’s home to serve a warrant for his arrest. Johnson was on probation for assaulting his girlfriend at the time and police believed he violated his probation.
When Johnson saw the officers arriving, he woke up his 12-year-old brother Joseph Long who ran to a house next door. Once there, the boy, who suffered from a congenital heart defect, collapsed and had a seizure.
At his trial, Johnson testified that officer McEntee prevented his mother from going inside the house to aid the boy who later died at the hospital.
That same evening, McEntee returned to the neighborhood on unrelated reports of illegal fireworks. While he was in his car questioning three children through the window, Johnson came up and shot him through the open passenger-side window, striking McEntee in the leg, head, and torso. One of the children was also hit in the shooting but survived. Johnson then got into the police car and stole McEntee’s gun.
Johnson left the scene and told his mother he killed McEntee because he let his 12-year-old brother die.
He then returned to the scene to discover McEntee was still alive. So he shot him again, this time in the back of the head, and killed him.
