After nearly three years of silence, Pamela Goode received a phone call on Wednesday that the District Attorney's Office will not file criminal charges against the cop who fatally shot her son.
"It feels like I'm going through it all over again," said Pamela Goode, 46. "I have nothing good in my heart to say to those in authority in this city."
Timothy Goode, a grandnephew of former Mayor Wilson Goode and a 24-year-old father-to-be, was shot to death by plainclothes officers on Jan. 11, 2008.
The District Attorney's Office yesterday announced that it "thoroughly reviewed the available information" related to the shooting, which occurred at 9:30 p.m. on Logan Street near Greene, and that no criminal charges are warranted against Officer Anthony Avery.
Police have said that Goode was involved in a drug deal and that, although he was running away, he had turned around and aimed a gun at police.
Police said that they found a 9 mm pistol and bag of crack vials near Goode's body. His mother doesn't believe that story, however, and Goode, nicknamed Tee, didn't have a criminal record.
The Goode family has filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the city.
Police spokesman Raymond Evers said that the department will now "administratively look into any policy and procedures that may have been violated" in the incident.
In his seven-year career, Avery has racked up five complaints, as well as a lawsuit alleging that he and another officer physically abused an entire family in 2006.
In 2009, the city paid a North Philadelphia family $24,000 after the family said that Avery and Officer William Phillips beat them up simultaneously in and around their home and inside the 39th Police District, at 22nd Street and Hunting Park Avenue, on Nov. 11, 2006.
One of the victims, Delaine Murray, was blinded in one eye due to the assault, according to the suit.
Three of the five complaints against Avery involve physical abuse, but none of the complaints was sustained.
There have been 38 fatal police-involved shootings since 2008.
Goode's father, Timothy Goode Sr., 49, said that he is just doing what he has to, to get by.
"They stole our joy in life," he said. "You bring a child up to the best of your ability, so that they can do the things you didn't get a chance to do . . . and for him to just leave like that."
