‘JUSTICE FOR COLE’? Was Cole Turner on his way to Harmony Park to become the next mass murderer?

Local activists have latched onto the death of Cole Turner, a 15-year-old shot dead by Bloomington Police after pointing a handgun at responding officers, and they are trying to make it some sort of cause célèbre.  This despite the fact that the investigation continues and where bodycam video will be released sooner or later.

Cole Turner wanted to become an attorney and prosecutor.

Yeah, it’s hard to go to law school when your high school career involves expulsion from public school, failing out of the alternative school at the ripe old age of 15.  And a police standoff.

Then again, he didn’t have much of a role model in a missing father.  Or a mother and her extensive criminal history involving theft, retail theft, criminal damage and promoting prostitution.  Her driving wasn’t much better.  Who knows if she got her license back after it was suspended and then revoked.  She didn’t let that stop her from driving though.  She racked up multiple driving on revoked charges.

Let’s be honest here:  It surely appears that mom’s looking for a nice ghetto lottery payment from the City of Bloomington.  So she’s milking her son’s death for all it’s worth while she can.

Because if she can’t get that settlement inked before the bodycam comes out, Cole’s death will become meaningless to her future wealth.

This Sunday, some of the usual suspects and naive kids turned out to demand “justice” for Cole Turner.

WGLT covered the so-called protest.

A crowd of about 70 supporters of Cole L. M. Turner and his family marched to the Bloomington Police Department on Sunday in protest of his death.

Again, don’t be brandishing a gun in public.  Particularly as a 15-year-old.  Don’t be tellin’ your peers that you’re going to take care of some business with that gun after you show it to them.  (Sounds almost threatening, doesn’t it?)

Even more importantly, don’t be raising it towards officers who are telling you to stop and show your hands.

Bloomington Police fatally shot Turner in response to a call about an armed suspect in the 700 block of Fairmont Drive on Feb. 25. Turner, of Normal, died from multiple gunshot wounds, according to the McLean County coroner.

Nice writing WGLT, but what do you expect from government-funded media.  He got fatally shot because he posed an imminent threat to innocent life.  In this case, presenting a handgun towards police.

I’m just damn thankful he didn’t stroll three blocks east into a park full of kids on a handicapped-accessible playground where me and my kids were at just a few minutes before.  That Rollingbrook park and the $2M+ Harmony Park playground are effectively my back yard.  Literally, as the kids like to say today.  We’d walked back to the house to welcome mom home from work when I heard the shots that ended this kid’s life.

Thinking about this some more…  was Cole on the way to that playground within Rollingbrook Park just three blocks away to “take care of some business” by slaughtering a bunch of children to gain fame as the next mass murderer?  It was packed with scores of kids and families enjoying the unseasonably warm weather.

He did reportedly tell some peers that he might die later in the day.  In fact, one source related that Cole said he “expected” to die later that day.

Turner’s family was in attendance, including his mother, Kelsey Woodrum. She said the grief she has dealt with because of his death and funeral has only become more difficult.

And the father?

“It actually got much harder after the funeral. I didn’t realize it was all going to hit me more after that time,” she said. “I laid him to rest, and now his body is going to be gone forever.”

Woodrum said the only thing she believes she can do now for her son is to fight for him.

Where were you the first 15 years?  If she had worked this hard in his more formative years we wouldn’t be having this conversation, now would we?

“I can’t just cower away and act like nothing happened or anything like that. This is my child and I’m going to do whatever I can,” she said.

A day late and a dollar short.

Woodrum said the protest was only one way of fighting for him and that those who support Turner have multiple ways they can show that.

“It’s very important to him and to me that for just people to show their face here today. To just even show that they care,” she said. “You don’t even have to do the march, you don’t have to do the protest. Driving by, waving, you know, offering support, donations, anything like that it’s all wonderful, it’s all acceptable.”

Woodrum said Turner was her “wild child.” He loved the warm weather, being outdoors and playing basketball with his friends, his mother said. She also described him as a smart and selfless young man, saying that everyone was his friend.

Smart?  Show us the receipts.  Show us his straight As at the RAS – Regional Alternative School.  Oh, the dog ate them.  I hate it when that happens.

What Woodrum stressed most of all about her son is that he was still a child — a 15-year-old who made mistakes like everyone else. At the time of his death, Turner was attending the Regional Alternative School in Bloomington.

We all make mistakes.  He was no child.  He was well on his way to adulthood.  And you’re no less dead if a 15-year-old shoots you than if a 21-year-old murders you.

Unlawfully toting a gun around as a 15-year-old isn’t a mistake.  It’s a crappy life choice that brings about serious consequences sooner or later.  Waving a gun around in public as a 15-year-old is another seriously crappy life-choice.  One his mother should have taught him better than to do.

And not following lawful directives of police?  That one usually won’t work well for you.  But Cole was well versed in dealing with police.  He had a lot of experience there.  But he didn’t listen.

“As far as his issues in life, we were working through them. We were in therapy, he’s been through a lot of trauma in his life … he was doing much better with everything, he was on the right path,” she said. “Everybody makes mistakes, but if we could all just, you know, put the hate down for a second and realize that Cole is, was a 15-year-old child … he’s just like everybody else.”

No, your kid was a menace to society.  THANK GOD Bloomington PD dealt with him when they did, where they did.  Because if he had pulled that crap endangering innocents in my presence, I might have had to do the dirty work of engaging him.  I don’t get paid to do that.

But make no mistake, I’m not going to sit idly by and watch some shitbird murder a bunch of toddlers and children in my presence uncontested.  That’s just not gonna happen, even if using deadly force is very messy even when done righteously, ethically and legally.