ST. LOUIS — A St. Louis police sergeant on Tuesday recalled that during negotiations with a man accused of killing a city cop, he and the man found common ground in fatherhood.
Thomas Kinworthy Jr. had barricaded himself inside a home and opened fire on two city police officers, killing one of them in August 2020. Sgt. Donnell Walters’ job was to convince him to come out.
The two talked about their respective children, and Kinworthy eventually agreed to call his two daughters and his ex-wife and let Walters listen in.
“He said the Lord’s Prayer with his daughters,” Walters testified on Tuesday. “It bothered me … because that officer was my friend.”
Walters’ testimony came on the second day of Kinworthy’s murder trial. Kinworthy is accused of shooting a man, barging into a random family’s Tower Grove South home and ordering them out, then opening fire on police from a window. Officer Tamarris Bohannon was shot and killed.
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Kinworthy’s lawyers don’t dispute that he shot from the house and kicked two people out of their own home, but they say he was suffering from a psychotic episode that prevented him from knowing what he was doing. They argue he should be sent to a state mental hospital instead of prison.
Walters’ role in the Aug. 29, 2020, incident began when he was called to the 3700 block of Hartford Street after Kinworthy had frightened a husband and wife into leaving their home and had begun firing shots out the window.
At one point Kinworthy yelled his ex-wife’s phone number out the window. Negotiators contacted her, and then got Kinworthy himself on the line.
It was a fraught back-and-forth, Walters testified, with Kinworthy frequently hanging up and getting angry when he saw a tactical van pull out front.
At one point, Walters said he asked if Kinworthy was ready to come out. When he didn’t, tactical units got into place.
SWAT team members eventually shot tear gas into the house and retrieved Kinworthy from a bathroom. He hit his head on a countertop during a struggle and was taken to the hospital.
Kinworthy’s trial is expected to continue Wednesday with more testimony from Walters as well as additional SWAT officers. Defense attorneys are expected to present mental health experts, as well as testimony from Kinworthy’s ex-wife.