Cooper’s wife, Brittney Cooper, said she’s been taking it day by day since his death.
“All I can do is wake up, try to take care of myself and take care of the things I need to take care of and keep pushing,” she said.
His mother, Michelle Cooper, said he was supposed to bury her and not the other way around.
“It’s hard,” she said. “That was my only child.”
Cooper was killed in a shooting on Jan. 26, 2022, during an attempted carjacking on Ferguson Avenue. Police responded to the area after the vehicle’s OnStar reported a possible crash and found Cooper dead.
Da’Trayvon Mitchell, 17, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on Wednesday after previously pleading guilty to one count each of murder and aggravated robbery, according to Montgomery County Common Pleas Court records. His co-defendant, 17-year-old Tylan Amir Peaks was sentenced to 27 years to life. He pleaded guilty to four counts of murder, six counts of aggravated robbery, two counts of felonious assault, one count of tampering with evidence and four counts of grand theft in July.
They were both 15 at the time of the shooting.
Brittney Cooper and Michelle Cooper both said they thought Mitchell seemed remorseful.
“Hopefully he’s on a path to redirecting his life, working on himself, forgiving himself, because that’s the only way he can grow and do better,” Brittney Cooper said.
Mitchell looked at the Cooper family as he left the courtroom and said sorry, Michelle Cooper said.
“And I felt that. He made a choice, so he does have to be punished for that, but I do believe he was remorseful,” she said.
Michelle Cooper also said a person on Facebook sent her a post Mitchell’s mother shared on social media apologizing for her son’s actions.
“If Miss Mitchell is watching I want her to know I do appreciate that,” Michelle Cooper said. “I feel like they know and they’re trying to accept responsibility.”
The Coopers said they did not feel they received as much of an apology from Peaks.
Derrick L. Foward, president of the Dayton Unit of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, called on the Dayton community and parents to bring an end to gun violence.
“You know the individuals that are committing these crimes,” he said. “But what ends up happening is not only are the people who have lost a loved one end up hurting, but you yourself end up hurting when those individuals are taken away from you.”
The family still has a civil lawsuit pending against Lyft, Mitchell and Peaks.
The lawsuit claims Lyft failed to implement safety measures to keep drivers and riders safe and is negligent in Cooper’s death.
“They have some explaining to do. They have some wrongs to right,” Brittney Cooper said. “This shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and it shouldn’t happen again.”
The teens reportedly used an unverified Lyft account with an untraceable form of payment to lure drivers to the area before attempting to steal their vehicles.
Lyft created a program in 2021 requiring app users to verify their identity if they used anonymous payment methods, the lawsuit alleges.
“Despite the known effectiveness of this identity verification system in reducing attacks on its drivers, Lyft chose to put these measures in place in only a few select cities and areas,” the lawsuit read. “It appears that in some instances, Lyft choses to wait until after dozens of attacks on its drivers in a given area before turning on an already existing safety feature that would prevent or discourage dangerous criminal attacks on its drivers.”
Michelle Cooper said Lyft has her son’s blood on their hands.
“The only thing they didn’t do was pull the trigger,” she said. “They are responsible.”
A final pretrial hearing for the lawsuit is scheduled for March 6 and the trial is set for March 31, according to Montgomery County Common Pleas Court records.
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