Officer Stanley Reaves
Summary of Offense:
Born on November 1, 1975 and sentenced to death in the City of Norfolk on July 16, 2007.
Thomas Alexander Porter was sentenced to death for the October 28, 2005, capital murder of Stanley Reaves, a Norfolk police officer shot to death as he attempted to stop and question him.
Porter and a friend, Reginald Copeland, drove in Porter’s Jeep to an apartment to buy marijuana from a friend of Copeland’s.
Porter, a felon, was carrying a concealed, 9mm semi-automatic handgun, a crime punishable by five years in prison. The men entered the apartment, which was occupied by the friend and several other women and girls.
The women said they did not have any marijuana for sale, angering Porter, who argued with them and brandished his handgun, threatening to shoot one of them. Copeland left the apartment but Porter remained, locking the door from the inside.
Copeland reported his concerns about Porter to three police officers, one of them Reaves, who he encountered a block away. Reaves drove his marked police car to the front of the apartment with Copeland following on foot.
As Reaves approached the building, Copeland pointed out Porter to the officer. Porter was leaving the apartment after he learned a police car had arrived. Reaves confronted Porter, told him to take his hands out of his pockets and then grabbed Porter’s left arm.
Two witnesses then saw Porter shoot Reaves. One of them, Simone Coleman, testified that the officer did not have his firearm out. She saw Porter draw his gun out of his pocket, aim at Reaves’ head and shoot.
Reaves fell to the ground, said Coleman. Another witnesses said that after Reaves fell, Porter shot him twice more, “between the back of the head and neck.” No witness ever saw Reaves draw his weapon.
Porter took Reaves’ gun and fled to New York City. He was caught a month later in White Plains, New York, with the murder weapon in his possession. Reaves’ gun was found in Yonkers, New York.
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