A Caddo District Court jury reported before 7 p.m. that it couldn't agree on a sentence -- life behind bars or the death penalty -- for Christopher Cope who was convicted Tuesday of killing a Shreveport police officer.
District Judge Mike Pitman instructed the jury to try again and ordered dinner for them. The jury, which took two hours to convict Cope, had been deliberating on his sentence for just under three hours.
The second day of the penalty phase in the Christopher Cope murder trial opened with defense testimony from the convicted man’s father, a cousin and long-time friend.
The collective picture they painted was of a young man who had struggled with school, needed constant reminders about the task at hand and been an outcast because of his weight.
In their closing arguments, prosecutors said Cope wasn't insane, had suffered no trauma and, because his father had been a police officer, knew where to shoot Sgt. Tim Prunty to avoid hitting his bullet-proof vest.
The jury of 10 women and two men must decide if the 26-year-old will face the death penalty or life in prison for shooting to death Prunty outside a convenience store in 2010. Cope, convicted after two hours of jury deliberation Tuesday, had pulled up to the store in his car and then opened fire on the officer, hitting the 19-year police veteran five times. Wednesday's testimony put on by the prosecution offered emotional recollections by those close to Prunty, including Police Chief Willie Shaw.
Cope is the son of former Shreveport police captain, Carl Cope, who told the Caddo District courtroom that he was watching a Sunday TV news report when he learned of his son’s arrest in the Oct. 24, 2010. The retired police officer said his feelings had been hurt that none of his friends on the force had called him to let him know about his son’s arrest.
Reviewing a series of photos of his son as a child, the elder Cope said Christopher appeared to be a happy child, though the photos did show a steady weight gain over the years. He said Chris had to repeat the seventh grade three times, the last time attending a campus with a program for the developmentally disabled. Previous testimony noted that the convicted killer had an IQ of 77. His father said Cope also had attention deficit disorder.
Carl Cope said he and Chris sometimes worked on cars together but needed close supervision for anything beyond changing the oil or replacing spark plugs. The father, who served on the force in the 1970s and 1980s related his own experience in a fatal shooting. He had been shot in an on-duty incident. The incident saddened him, he said, but he was able to move on because the shooting was in the line of duty. The elder Cope also noted that two of his children had died as infants, only a few days after their births.
Cope’s cousin, Kyle Triplett, told the court that he and Chris had both been something of outcasts in school. Triplett had been short for his age and Chris was overweight. Both struggled academically and Chris always supportive anytime Triplett failed in school work.
Chase Crowder, a U.S. Army veteran, recalled how his friend, Christopher Cope, had been supportive whenever Crowder had spoken of losing friends in the Afghanistan war.
In the afternoon, another cousin, Lloyd Triplett, 51, spent an emotional time on the stand, recalling his closeness with Cope and their occasional hunting trips together. Triplett also noted that he and the victim had been in a martial arts class together, particularly recalling Prunty's sense of humor.
Cope's second grade teacher, Rhonda Barr, also took the stand, recalling how she made a conscious decision to use positive reinforcement rather than punishment to boost the withdrawn student's performance. She remembers being surprised when Cope was one of the students who accepted an invitation to attend her wedding.