The brother of former Lakers nice Michael Cooper was fatally shot Saturday in the identical Pasadena park the place the siblings performed basketball as children.
Cooper, a basketball analyst for KABC-TV Channel 7, confirmed to the station that the sufferer of the taking pictures at Washington Park was his brother, Mickey, 64. Michael stated he and Mickey performed on the park as youngsters.
Police responded to a taking pictures round 4 a.m. within the 700 block of East Washington Boulevard after being alerted by the ShotSpotter sound-detection system that acknowledges loud, repetitive sounds which may be gunshots, based on the Pasadena Police Division. The person was pronounced lifeless on the scene, police stated.
The ShotSpotter system was permitted by the Pasadena Metropolis Council and carried out in early 2022 after officers had been alarmed by a spate of violence that included a stray bullet taking the lifetime of Iran Moreno-Balvaneda, a 13-year-old boy taking part in video video games in his house.
Pasadena police documented 60 shootings with 4 individuals killed and 25 others injured from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2020, a determine that the division stated elevated by about 10% in 2021.
Greater than 700 firearms, many from automobiles, waistbands and from residences on account of search warrants, had been confiscated in 2020 and 2021, Pasadena Deputy Chief Cheryl Moody stated at a information convention after the slaying of Moreno-Balvaneda.
“The specter of gun violence is a real hazard, and the Pasadena Police Division is working diligently to get weapons off the streets and out of the fingers of those that intend to hurt others,” Moody stated. The division will proceed in its dedication to convey on further patrols and intelligence gathering “to fight this rash of shootings.”
Michael and Mickey Cooper had been raised in Pasadena primarily by their grandmother, Ardessie Butler, after their mother and father, Marshall and Jean, divorced when the boys had been younger. Jean, who had 10 siblings, labored as a registered nurse and the boys grew up in a busy family.
“There have been 18 of us scrambling across the desk for dinner,” Michael stated throughout his 12-year Lakers profession. “And for those who didn’t get there in time, you didn’t get no rooster.”
Michael Cooper, 67, went on to play on all 5 of the Lakers’ world championship groups within the Nineteen Eighties and was named the NBA Defensive Participant of the 12 months in 1986-87. He went on to develop into an assistant coach with the Lakers, the head coach of the WNBA Sparks, main them to league titles in 2001 and 2002, and the head coach of the USC ladies’s basketball crew.