Trooper's death may prove hard to prosecute

By all accounts, it was an accident.

Cpl. Richard Schroeter had led countless classes in his 12 years as a Pennsylvania State Police firearms instructor. He had taught the same class several times that week, always carefully unloading his weapon and following "the four cardinal rules of firearms safety," according to Montgomery County grand jury testimony.

But on Sept. 30, Schroeter told investigators, he "did not perform a safety check of his Sig Sauer" pistol. When he squeezed the trigger, the five troopers sitting around a conference table "saw a flash, heard a sound, and saw Trooper Kedra jump," the grand jury wrote.

David Kedra, a 26-year-old rookie from Northeast Philadelphia, was fatally shot in the abdomen.

It was a horrific accident. A preventable accident. An accident of "recklessness and/or gross negligence," the grand jury wrote. A criminal accident, said Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman, who charged Schroeter on Tuesday with five counts of reckless endangerment.

The decision outraged Kedra's family, who said his death was involuntary manslaughter and deserved to be prosecuted as such. Ferman defended the charges, saying, "It would be ethically irresponsible and wrong" to file a charge the grand jury, by a 10-8 vote, had rejected.

Several lawyers and former prosecutors offered conflicting opinions on the import of the grand jury's recommendation. But they agreed a manslaughter case would be difficult to win.

"There's no way you're winning the manslaughter," said David Zellis, a former Bucks County prosecutor turned defense attorney. "I don't even think you're going to win reckless endangerment in a jury trial."

Zellis noted the bar was much higher for trial juries, which must find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Grand juries are looking only for probable cause.

"This was something he was doing as part of his job," L. George Parry, a Philadelphia defense lawyer, said of Schroeter. "He's going to get every benefit of the doubt."

For Kedra's family, who waited four months for the investigation to conclude, Ferman's decision to file lesser charges has reopened the wound.

"It's the worst it's been since right after he was shot," said Kevin Kedra, David's older brother.

"When you recklessly endanger somebody and that kills them, that's called homicide," said David's sister, Christine Kedra. "That is the exact definition of involuntary manslaughter."

Ferman said she understood the family's pain but said, "We have to make decisions based on the law, not what emotion wants."

Defense attorney Tim Woodward said Schroeter, a 20-year veteran, had been "wracked with remorse" since the shooting, more devastated by the death of "someone whom he cared about" than by the legal consequences.

If convicted of all five counts of reckless endangerment, he could get up to 10 years in prison. His arraignment is scheduled for April 1, and Woodward said they had not decided how Schroeter would plead.

Though accidental shootings among law enforcement officers are rare, cases similar to Schroeter's have mostly gone in the officers' favor.

In Chester County in 1971, two state troopers, both 26 years old, were "horsing around" in the Avondale barracks. John Finnegan's weapon went off, fatally shooting Robert J. Lomas Jr. in the head.

William Lamb, the assistant district attorney at the time, charged Finnegan with manslaughter and lost the case. Despite the outcome, Lamb still believes the charge was appropriate.

"As tragic as it was, and there was nothing deliberate about it, this was a question a jury of his peers had to decide," said Lamb, who later served on the state Supreme Court and now is in private practice.

In Baltimore in 2013, a police firearms instructor was charged with reckless endangerment and second-degree assault.

William S. Kern testified that he thought he had grabbed a training weapon loaded with fake ammunition. But instead he had fired his service weapon and shot a trainee in the head, the Baltimore Sun reported.

The young man survived, and a jury found Kern not guilty of assault. For reckless endangerment, a charge that carries a maximum of five years, the judge sentenced Kern to 18 months, of which he served 60 days.

The victim's family is suing Kern and the department in federal court, seeking $470 million in damages.

Kevin Kedra said his family had not ruled out a civil suit.

"We're looking at anything that can get us justice at this point," he said. "We've been, I would say, stonewalled and misled throughout this process."

Kedra said they repeatedly asked to have Schroeter tested for drugs or alcohol but Ferman refused.

In an interview Friday, the D.A. said there was no probable cause to order toxicology tests and "not a shred of evidence to suggest he was under the influence of anything."

In the grand jury report, Schroeter gave no explanation for his failure to follow the safety protocol that day.

In previous training sessions, other troopers testified, Schroeter "went to a corner of the classroom" and cleared the weapon. He removed the magazine, pulled back the slide, and "showed two people that it was unloaded." "He pointed his firearm at the floor" when he demonstrated the Sig's lighter trigger.

Even though, by his own account, Schroeter did not do those things on the day Kedra was killed, he said he had been "100 percent certain that his firearm was empty."

Kedra, three years out of Temple University and two years into his dream job with the state police, was engaged and had recently bought a house in Pottstown.

At an elaborate law enforcement funeral in October, regiments from around the country saluted his casket. Eulogies by the state police commissioner and Kedra's family and friends were broadcast on a loudspeaker to the overflow crowd lining the sidewalk.

"He'd say, 'I can't believe they're paying me to do this job,' " said Trooper Peter Huyalew, who worked with Kedra at the Skippack barracks.

It was a loss for the agency and the family that would not soon be forgotten, they said.

"We've never been pushing that this was intentional and [Schroeter] should go away for life," Kevin Kedra said. "But he broke so many rules. He was reckless . . . and my brother is gone."

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