Verdict offers relief, but anger remains

Brian Cole, a former North High star point guard, always had another basketball practice or tournament on his busy schedule.

His mother saw to it.

As they grew, some of his friends took to the street-gang life. But they remained friends. That's often the way in north Minneapolis. Students and athletes mix with the gangbangers and nobody talks about the bad stuff.

"When trouble came, my son went the other way," his mom, Carol Turner, said. "He's not into that."

Despite his talent on the court and his mom's firm hand, street violence came his way in June 2006. Cole was shot and killed as he and some buddies who had gathered for the Juneteenth festival packed together under a tree for shelter from the rain. He was the accidental target of a car full of gang members cruising for revenge.

Kirk Harrison, 22, was convicted Thursday of second-degree unintentional murder in the shooting.

But Hennepin County District Court Judge Jack Nordby acquitted him of five charges, including four counts of first-degree murder and another count of second-degree murder.

Nordby said the prosecutors failed to prove intent, premeditation and that the crimes were committed for the benefit of a gang.

The verdict appeared to please neither side.

Harrison's lawyer Emmett Donnelly had argued that another man in the car fired the gun. "We wanted an acquittal. But we wouldn't sit back and criticize a jury verdict so I won't criticize a judge's verdict," Donnelly said.

Carol Turner had waited for more than a year for someone to be charged in her son's murder. She sat through Harrison's trial. On Thursday, she and her husband, Derrick Turner, and Brian Cole's two younger brothers Dorian Bush, 18, and Adrian Bush, 14, sat somberly as Nordby read the verdict.

"Everybody knows when you pick up a gun, you could kill someone," she said afterward. "It only takes one bullet to kill someone. Only one bullet hit my son.

"I just have to keep my head up, but it's not fair."

Prosecutors said a car full of Lyndale-Lowry gang members were cruising for revenge on the 19 Block Dipset gang when they came upon the crowd under the tree at 8th and Oliver Avs. N. Lincoln Caldwell was driving, and Kirk Harrison fired a gun out the window. He was aiming at a gang member standing near Cole, but he shot Cole, severing his trachea.

Defense lawyer Donnelly argued that Caldwell fired the gun. Caldwell is to go to trial next month.

Nordby said the evidence shows that Caldwell was the principal actor in the events and provided the gun, but that Harrison fired the fatal shot.

"The act was so reckless and so dangerous a death was certainly one foreseeable consequence, but I conclude ... there is reasonable doubt whether the intention was to kill any person (Mr. Cole or anyone else) as opposed to injure or frighten," Nordby said.

Sympathy as well as grief

Carol Turner has sympathy for Harrison's family, especially his mother, who saw her younger son Carnel Harrison testify against his older brother. "We're angry, but at the same time, I'm sure they're angry," she said.

The family has moved from north Minneapolis to a cozy apartment in St. Anthony.

"I still have kids to raise," she said.

Photos of her three sons and her and Derrick Turner's two daughters decorate the walls. In two recent photos, the six family members wear Brian Cole memorial T-shirts. Carol and Dorian have commemorative tattoos.

Adrian, who has an easy smile, sparkly eyes and his late brother's height, also plays point guard and wants to go to college and maybe the NBA. Dorian is quieter. He is interested in law enforcement and is trying to find a way to pay for college.

The brotherly teasing at which Brian excelled has continued without him, but still includes him, and his interest in grooming and girls.

Dorian replayed a refrain from Brian. "Dori, you might be the smart one, but I'm the fine one.'" "I said, 'You're fine, but you're stupid.'"

Then Brian would say Adrian and Dorian only knew how to dress well because he had taught them, his mom recalled.

On the anniversary of Brian's death last year, the family took a trip to Six Flags Great America in Waukegan, Ill. They'll leave town again this year. Dorian is lobbying for Florida.

Carol Turner said she never knows when the grief will hit. Some days, she said, she is overwhelmed with sadness and worry about her surviving sons.

"I think about death all the time. I do worry what if something happens to them. Your kids aren't supposed to die before you," she said.

Rochelle Olson • 612-673-1747