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Home > Blogs > Dayton Courts: Legal and crime news > Archives > 2009 > April > 07
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Damarion Flippin’s killer sentenced to 13 years in prison
DAYTON — An alleged gang member who admitted gunning down a classmate at an RTA bus stop was sentenced Tuesday, April 7, to 13 years in state prison.
Scott Cook, Jr., 18, who was described by a juvenile judge in March as a “high-ranking gang member,” was transferred over to the general division to be tried as an adult. He was 17 when he shot Damarion Flippin on Nov. 13.
Cook pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault charges Tuesday, March 24.
“It has been so painful for me since my son’s been gone for no reason at all,” said Mike Dillard, Flippin’s father. “Put the guns and knives down. It ain’t worth it in the end.”
Cook’s attorney, Anthony VanNoy, told Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Frances McGee that his client “regrets the choices that he made,” and Cook mumbled an apology.
“You know that’s not enough,” McGee told him, adding that she reviewed his statements about the case. “You didn’t man up, but out there on the streets, you were a man because you had a gun.”
McGee said that Flippin did nothing to provoke Cook, who beat him up, then returned with a gun. Even if Cook felt “disrespected” by Flippin, McGee said “that is a blip in the life you could have had. You made a 30-second decision that changed everybody else’s life.”
The 13-year-sentence was part of the plea agreement between Montgomery County prosecutors and VanNoy.
Flippin, 17, who lived at 108 Pointview Ave., was shot about 6:30 a.m. Nov 13 after a brief argument at the RTA bus stop on Santa Clara and Wheatley avenues.
Flippin was pronounced dead six hours later at Miami Valley Hospital. He was on his way to the Isus Institute of Construction Technology, a charter school. Both Flippin and Cook were students at the school.
Police arrested Cook the same day, and he was held in juvenile detention until March 3, when Juvenile Court Judge Anthony Capizzi ordered him transferred to the Montgomery County Jail and set a $1 million bond.
Capizzi, who said that investigative reports called Cook a “high-ranking member” of the GVC gang, said Cook was not amenable to treatment in the juvenile system and said Cook should be tried as an adult.
Capizzi said that he did not know if Flippin’s death was the result of gang activity, but said Flippin had done nothing to provoke Cook, who apparently went to the school after the shooting for an expulsion hearing.
Isus principal Barbara Wagner testified March 3 that during that expulsion hearing, a staff member handed her a note that stated police were there for Cook.
Cook had 10 unexcused absences and 19 tardies between, Sept. 26, his first day at the school, and his suspension in early November. He was suspended with a recommendation for expulsion because he entered the basement, which is off limits to students, then left the school property without permission, Wagner testified.
During the March 3 hearing, prosecutors also called Johnny Vance, Cook’s probation officer, who said that Cook had more than 40 referrals to the juvenile system during the previous five years, but never before for a felony offense. Many of those referrals were unruly or truancy offenses, and had been generated by phone calls from Cook’s mother, Vance said.
Cook was “non-compliant” in counseling programs and had his probation extended four to five times during a three-year period, Vance said.
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Two women indicited in connection with largest PCP seizure in OSP history
EATON — Two Las Vegas women implicated in the largest PCP seizure in Ohio State Highway Patrol history have been indicted in Preble County on felony charges, the OSP said Tuesday, April 7.
10 gallons of liquid PCP seized March 12 by the Ohio State Highway PatrolThe PCP, valued at $3 million, is the first bulk seizure of PCP the patrol has ever taken, said Sgt. Karla Taulbee. Past PCP seizures were smaller amounts that suspects had for personal use, Taulbee said.
Lisandra Pearson, 22, and Dianira Garcia, 24, were both charged with aggravated possession of liquid PCP, a first-degree felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The two were in a rented 2009 Cadillac Escalade when troopers stopped them on March 12. Pearson was driving the car, which was eastbound on Interstate 70 in Preble County. The car was stopped for a following too closely violation and turn signal violations at 11:57 a.m., the OSP said.
A patrol drug-detecting dog alerted positively to the vehicle. A probable cause search revealed a total of 10 individual gallons of liquid PCP hidden in a locked suitcase.
Pearson and Garcia are free on bond. Patrol investigators do not know where the two were traveling to, Taulbee said.
