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Teen pleads guilty to gunning down Damarion Flippin
DAYTON — The accused killer of Damarion Flippin pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault charges Tuesday, March 24.
Scott Cook, Jr., 18, who was described by a juvenile judge earlier this month as a “high-ranking gang member,” will be sentenced April 7 by Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Frances E. McGee.
Both charges include firearms specifications, which would add three years to any prison sentence.
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, who was 17 at the time, 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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