Markeshia Ricks Photo
Eddie Trimble had a lot he could have said at the sentencing of the man charged with killing his son. Instead he offered an olive branch to the gunman and his family.
Trimble showed up to state Superior Court on Church Street Friday to attend the sentencing hearing of 20-year-old Branden Harper that was fraught with tension. Judge Patrick J. Clifford sentenced Harper to 20 years in prison, not for murder, but for manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm for killing Trimble’s son Tyrell in May 2012. Harper must serve at least 12 before he can be considered for probation.
Harper shot and killed Tyrell, who was 20 years old, on Elm Street near the Stop & Shop Plaza in the middle of the day three years ago. (Read about the shooting here and here.)
For Eddie Trimble (pictured above), the hearing capped years of anger and frustration with a justice system that he believed should have done more to protect his son. (His son had cooperated with police on another case, he said.) He said Friday he hoped the sentencing would mark the beginning of healing for his family and Harper’s, but it was not to be.
“We’re supposed to be out here bonding right now,” Trimble said while standing outside the courtroom Friday. “But you heard what was said.”
After the hearing, members of Harper’s family — who claimed their son’s innocence — were escorted out of the courtroom to avoid conflict with Trimble’s family. Some burst out of the courtroom angrily. One woman said, “They know who killed their son.” And another said that Harper shouldn’t have to reimburse the Trimble family for Tyrell’s funeral, which was part of Judge Clifford’s sentencing order.
Thirty minutes before the hearing’s start, Trimble decided not to speak before Clifford, who presided over the sentencing hearing, in hopes of deescalating the tension between the two families.
“He [Trimble] truly had so many things to say about everything,” Assistant State’s Attorney Stacey Miranda told Clifford. “He didn’t want to say something wrong, or that might be misconstrued by anyone. He simply wants the violence in New Haven to stop.”
So instead of offering his words, Trimble offered Harper his contact information and himself as a mentor.
“Mr. Trimble is inviting Mr. Harper to have a conversation with him, which shocked me,” Miranda said. “He wants to have a one-on-one conversation with Mr. Harper, man to man.”
Harper also was extended forgiveness by Tyrell’s older sister Omuni Barnes, 35, who did speak to Clifford. She admonished Harper to take responsibility for his actions.
The environment that her deceased brother, Tyrell, Harper and the other young men in the courtroom live in makes violence seem “like it’s OK,” Barnes said. “It’s not OK.”
“We’re trying to deal with this,” she said. “His family is trying to deal with this. The difference is they can go see him, talk to him and send him a care package. They’ll get a card from him. We’ll never be able to get that again.”
She told Harper to take ownership of what he’d done.
“You want to be a man — do manly things,” she said. “A true man owns up to everything he’s done.” She echoed her father, Trimble, who has always maintained that Tyrell was “not perfect,” and neither was he a perfect dad.
Harper’s attorney, Jeremiah Donovan, pointed out to Clifford that the state had to agree to a compromise on Harper’s charges because there was a reasonable chance that had the case gone to trial his client could have been acquitted of murder charges. (Harper pleaded guilty to the lesser manslaughter charge.) Donovan indicated that there was some question of whether the gun used to kill Tyrell was the same gun used by another man in a different killing. Harper did not say anything on his own behalf at the sentencing.
Clifford said he always finds it remarkable when people like the Trimble family, who have lost a loved one to violence, offer forgiveness to the perpetrator of violence against them.
“I don’t know if I’m not strong enough, or I’m not religious enough,” he said, “but Tyrell’s father sounds like a good man who is trying to make sense of a horrible situation.”
He told Harper that he had hoped what the Trimble family said and what they offered reached him. But, he said, “I wasn’t picking up a good feeling looking at you during their testimony.”
Clifford sought to impress upon Harper the tough road ahead. Harper was 18 when he was arrested for killing Tyrell. He has had no verifiable employment; nor does he have a high school diploma. The judge told Harper that he hopes he will “avail himself of some of the resources available in prison,” that he will pick up something besides more “negative behavior.”
Trimble said he was disappointed by the response of Harper’s family.
“He still has a chance at life,” Trimble said of Harper. “My son don’t have that chance anymore. He’s gone. But I said what I said because we could really do something to change what’s going on in the city.”
Click on the video of Eddie Trimble, on a previous occasion, describe a separate shooting of his son, Tyrell, that Eddie believes was related to the eventual killing.
