Kevin Johnson Speaks From Death Row About His Impending Execution This Month

The US promotes itself as being the “chief of the free world.” But, its authorized equipment and carceral techniques have constructed a bloodthirsty, parasitical machine obsessive about domination, captivity and torture — below the guise of justice. This nation considers itself “civilized,” but the loss of life penalty is authorized in 27 states. Like Nazi euthanasia applications that executed prisoners deemed “unworthy of life,” the up to date U.S. makes comparable determinations with assorted means throughout states, together with deadly injections, the electrical chair and firing squads (the final firing squad execution was that of Ronnie Lee Gardner in Utah in 2010).

The state of Missouri plans to execute Kevin “KJ” Johnson, a 37-year-old father and grandfather, on November 29 for capturing and killing police officer William McEntee in 2005. On the time, Johnson was 19 years previous and in psychological misery after watching his 12-year-old brother collapse, and die, throughout a police home search. Johnson grew up below impoverished and traumatic circumstances of kid neglect and little one abuse. His advocates assert that racist prosecutorial conduct and ineffective counsel impacted his protection, and that court-appointed attorneys didn’t current mitigating proof to the jury. The hung jury in Johnson’s first trial rejected the first-degree homicide cost. In his second trial, by an all-white jury after the prosecutor eradicated potential Black jurors, he was sentenced to loss of life for killing a white police officer.

Capital punishment is traumatic not just for the accused, but in addition for household, mates and supporters. We should always reject the backwards logic that placing an expiration date on a person’s life will in some way make this militarized and violent nation a safer place to dwell.

Under we’re sharing a streamlined and edited adaptation from “Live from Death Row: Kevin Johnson,” an FTP Motion interview that we performed with Johnson on November 7, 2022.

A man stands beside a pregnant woman, whose belly over which he places his hand, as two other women pose next to them in a studio photograph.
Kevin Johnson and his household.

Kalonji Changa: Kevin Johnson, how did you come up in St. Louis County, Missouri?

Kevin Johnson: I favored video games and training sports activities, all these items with the typical of the city neighborhood carry all my siblings collectively and a few unlucky issues. I had a child at a younger age and [I had] my little brothers.

Changa: You had a baby at an early age [17] and as we speak your little one is how previous?

Johnson: My daughter is nineteen now. She has a five-month-old son.

Changa: Congratulations on that and your grandson. You will have shared that you just grew up with a mom hooked on medicine and in extreme poverty, and meals insecurity.

Johnson: Sure, you already know the drug scenario. My father, like many people, additionally bumped into comparable conditions and was coping with incarceration.

Changa: We’re fairly positive that that impacted you; and also you had been separated out of your siblings for a time?

Johnson: Rising up … you need your dad to be current and do stuff; he needs to be your good friend, [protect you]. It was irritating [and] disturbing not having them there. I’ve to do what I’ve to do to outlive.

Pleasure James: Kevin, information articles point out that your lecturers and your principal stayed in contact with you throughout your almost 20 years of incarceration, and that they continue to be supportive. Some have mentioned that they wished that they had higher acknowledged [the poverty, hunger, neglect, child abuse, foster care] you suffered as a baby. How had been you in a position to make connections to neighborhood and faculty for individuals to see your worth?

Johnson: Anytime I used to be in school, you already know, taking part in with different youngsters, studying stuff [that is the way that] I [got] power and favored college. I got here late to the interview as we speak as a result of my first-grade instructor was visiting.

Changa: You could have made a severe influence on that instructor. You’re locked up and going through the costs that you’ve and you’ve got a instructor from 31 years in the past coming to go to. That claims lots about your character. We needed to listen to your voice … and find out about your brother, Bam-Bam, who died the day you shot the police officer.

Johnson: He had some struggles in life; he had a foul coronary heart. I’ve this want to guard him. I didn’t have a father that I wanted in my life, proper. I needed to, like, form of really feel for any individual else, to maintain them, shield them. … My mom gave him the nickname and it simply caught.

Changa: The final 12 months [before incarceration], while you had been 18 or 19, you mentioned that you just lived on the streets. How did you and your brother Bam-Bam keep collectively?

Johnson: My great-grandma is a warm-hearted lady, [she took us both in]. Me and my older brother . . . after I was 3 we might come dwelling hungry with our mom not at dwelling; she was hooked on medicine. We had been so hungry that we might attempt to eat roaches.

Changa: Let’s discuss that day in [July], the occasions that passed off.

Johnson: I grabbed my keys. I bumped into the lounge and he was [lying] on the ground. I ought to have paid extra consideration that he was [lying] on the ground. It was a fantastic day outdoors. This 12-year-old child — it’s not regular for him to be [lying] on the ground in the midst of the afternoon. However I informed him to take my automobile keys to my grandmother so the police wouldn’t impound my automobile and discover my gun.

Police had been confused. I might see from my grandma’s home subsequent door. I might see my brother [lying] down in the home subsequent door. I noticed an officer stepping over one thing [it turned out to be Bam-Bam]. I’m getting mad. My mom is making an attempt to enter the home to achieve Bam-Bam, however police saved pushing her out. EMS pulled the stretcher by means of the yard with my brother on it. [Bam-Bam was pronounced dead at the hospital at an unknown time.]

Changa: That will need to have been extraordinarily traumatic giving how a lot you liked your child brother.

Johnson: The opposite two officers came to visit to the home. I didn’t really feel comfy being round my daughter who I used to be babysitting in my relative’s home subsequent door; so, I known as her mom to come back and get her.

[After his daughter went with her mother, Kevin Johnson wandered through the neighborhood with the gun from his car after police left. Neighbors continuously stopped Kevin to ask if he was okay. He states that he wandered for about 30 minutes until he saw the sergeant in charge of the police searching the house. According to Johnson when he was shooting the police, he kept thinking, “You killed my brother!” According to Johnson he could hear the commotion and shouts but he mentally blacked out.]

James: Do you are feeling that the guilt you had for Bam-Bam’s loss of life [having him take car keys to your grandmother’s house and being stopped by police engaged in a search warrant for you] was what induced you to lose management while you noticed the police officer who got here later to the scene to oversee?

Changa: The officer you shot wasn’t the one stepping over Bam-Bam’s physique?

Johnson: Proper. That officer got here when the EMT arrived. He had nothing to do with my brother. In that second, however in my thoughts, I do know that he didn’t do my brother.

Changa: It wasn’t the officer himself, it was what the police supervisor represented?

Johnson: Yeah.

Changa: What occurs from there?

Johnson: After the capturing, I walked down the road and round a nook, I noticed my mom. Her face jumped up from the bottom. She was telling me to recollect my daughter. I snapped out of no matter daze I used to be in. I wanted to see my 2-year-old.

Changa: You had been apprehended, charged and sentenced, and given the loss of life penalty.

James: How did attorneys cope with your emotional and psychological wants as a part of the protection technique? You had been in a steady psychological disaster. You had been 19; the mind doesn’t absolutely type till or after age 25.

Johnson: The protection didn’t wish to pursue that kind of technique. The flamboyant lawyer was so completely different from the girl public defender; the very first thing he requested me when he got here to see was “What occurred?” A 12 months after it occurred. Within the first spherical, a majority of the jury was in favor of second-degree homicide.

James: How do you see, after almost twenty years in jail, your progress and improvement from elevating your daughter from behind the wall? Do you think about a way forward for elevating your grandson and supporting your daughter?

Johnson: Oh my God. I can’t help her. Once I got here to jail in my first week or month, I acquired recommendation from a fellow inmate who was like my father. He’s like, “Man, it’s gonna be laborious. It doesn’t matter what, don’t quit.” Luckily, I had a lot of mates that had been concerned who would go get my daughter and convey her up right here after her mom was killed two years later.

James: Though you could have been in jail for years, she is so fortunate to have a father or mother to take care of her; regardless of all of the obstacles, she actually is aware of you like her.

Changa: That’s an honorable factor, man. Members of Feed the Folks contacted [Missourians Against the Death Penalty] to supply help to your daughter and grandson. Hopefully, you may be free one in all today to maintain your loved ones your self, however we’re going to share the accountability if that may give you any kind of assurance.

Johnson: Yeah, yeah. She’s been going by means of lots with the lack of her mom [who was shot in the back of the head by a man she rejected while walking with her 4-year-old daughter to Walmart].

Changa: As an organizer, I labored with a number of completely different households and people [Troy Davis and his family] on loss of life row. How have you ever been in a position to cope, on condition that one in all your greatest fears is find out how to help the well-being of your daughter?

Johnson: I acquired so many hours to dwell … that’s terrifying. It’s the toughest factor to deal with, after which it’s the uncertainty.

James: Do you discover consolation in spirituality?

Johnson: I pray. I dream lots; I all the time really feel like if I can’t dwell the life I would like, then I can escape in goals. Prayer brings me again.

Changa: Are there any phrases or recommendation for children arising proper now, for younger brothers and sisters who’ve comparable circumstances and circumstances?

Johnson: I believe my greatest mistake in life was simply even carrying a gun. As a result of while you carry a gun, you create alternatives to make use of it and more often than not you don’t want to make use of it.

James: I’ve been speaking about your case at Yale, Dartmouth, and so on. Individuals are studying extra, and we plan to do extra.

Changa: You’re not using alone. We’re not simply gonna sit again idly with our fingers crossed and saying, “That’s a rattling disgrace.” Of us are actually preventing in your behalf from the block to the boardroom.

Johnson: I recognize that love. I wish to say that I’ve nice regret for capturing and killing that police officer.

James: Youngsters are elevating youngsters in emotional and psychological misery as a result of the tradition is violent and doesn’t provide sufficient sources. Regardless of an inventory of childhood horrors, Kevin managed to like and to be beloved.

Changa: After talking to brothers who’ve been on loss of life row and organizing with and assembly their households, I can say that there isn’t a kind of ache like figuring out that the state is planning on taking an individual’s life.

James: The lack of the officer’s life is a tragedy for his or her household, neighborhood and society at giant. Additionally tragic is systemic little one abuse, little one neglect and little one poverty; the loss of life of 12-year-old Bam-Bam who can be 30 this 12 months; and a 37-year-old who needs to be babysitting his grandson and serving to to make dinner along with his daughter.

Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty requests that we petition signatures to spare Johnson’s life (the request is life imprisonment as a substitute of the loss of life penalty).

Observe: The op-ed at the beginning of this piece was written by Kalonji Changa, and the interview that follows was collectively performed by Pleasure James and Kalonji Changa. The transcript has been frivolously edited for readability and concision.