Ex-Myers Park teacher testifies police shooting of his son 'didn't have to happen'

Moments before his death, Spencer Mims III placed his fingers to his forehead and dared a police officer to shoot him.

"Put two here," said Mims, who had a lifelong struggle with mental problems. "I've suffered for 40 years, and I'm tired."

On Wednesday, a Mecklenburg jury heard Mims' father say that both he and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Officer Jeremy Donaldson tried to talk Mims into taking the blade away from his throat.

The father, Spencer Mims Jr., also tried to convince his son that Donaldson had come to their southwest Charlotte home only to help.

"Spencer, this officer is not going to shoot you," the father said in a video deposition recorded last month.

"And I fully believed he wasn't."

Moments later, the father said, he saw sparks from the muzzle of Donaldson's handgun as three shots rang out. Spencer Mims, mortally wounded, fell to the porch a few feet away from his father.

"I went into a kind of shock. I didn't ever expect to hear any gunshot fire," Mims Jr. said during his deposition. "It wasn't necessary. It didn't have to happen."

Both Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police and the Mecklenburg County District Attorney's Office have cleared Donaldson and Officer Michael Whitlock of wrongdoing in Mims' death. Mims' father has brought a wrongful-death lawsuit against Charlotte and Donaldson.

Donaldson told the jury this week that he opened fire because Mims kept walking toward him with the box-cutter and that he feared for his safety.

However, a police training expert testifying Wednesday on behalf of the family said the officers needlessly escalated the confrontation with Mims and that Donaldson used excessive force when he fired his gun.

Mims Jr., who taught orchestra at Myers Park High for 34 years, said he still struggles with what he saw unfold on his front porch, five years removed from his son's death.

"I don't think there's anything that will make me feel any better," he said in the video during questioning by his family's attorney, Luke Largess. "This is a terrible nightmare that you don't wake up from."

Mims Jr.'s retelling of witnessing his son's death highlighted the second day of testimony in the wrongful-death trial, which has focused attention on how Charlotte-Mecklenburg police respond to situations involving mentally ill people.

Mel Tucker, a former FBI agent and police chief in Hickory and Asheville, told the jury that Donaldson and Whitlock repeatedly violated Charlotte-Mecklenburg police policies during their brief and deadly confrontation with Mims.

Those breaches — including what Tucker described as Donaldson's overly aggressive approach to the porch and Whitlock's unwarranted use of a Taser — escalated an already tense situation with Mims, who had grown distraught that night while watching Washington, his favorite NFL team, blow a two-touchdown lead in a playoff loss to Seattle.

His father, who had been watching the game with Mims, left the house for several hours in hopes Mims would cool down. He later arranged for police to meet him at the home so he could collect some clothing and sleep elsewhere that night.

After the officers arrived, Mims Jr. said he watched the night spin out of control at the base of the front steps leading up to the porch. He said his son sprang to his feet as Donaldson told him to drop the box-cutter while Whitlock moved across the front yard to find a break in a hedgerow so he could aim his Taser.

When Whitlock fired, Mims Jr. said, he saw his son's right arm rise up, and somebody shouted "Noooo." One of the electric prongs had struck Mims in his right elbow. The other slammed into the side of the house.

According to earlier testimony, Donaldson rushed Mims to handcuff him, only to find that he had not been immobilized by the Taser. Tucker told the jury Donaldson erred by not waiting long enough to see whether the Taser shots were working, then compounded that mistake by backing himself into the corner of the porch and not taking the stairs.

Minutes after promising Mims that no one was going to shoot him, Mims Jr. saw his son fall face down to the right of the front door. He said he was at the police station being interviewed when he learned his son had died. Mims was 55.

Mims Jr. was 82 and had never lived by himself before, he said.

In her questioning, defense attorney Lori Keeton asked Mims Jr. about two earlier episodes in which his son was taken from the home and hospitalized for psychiatric care. In one, police had come to the house in 2011 to remove two handguns from Mims' bedroom. The father had told Donaldson about those guns when the officer arrived at the Mims home in January 2013.

Keeton also asked the father about earlier statements the father had given in which he expressed some concern that Mims might injure himself or someone else with the knives he carried in his pocket.

"I never lost any sleep over it," Mims Jr. replied. He had earlier described his son as low key and kind. The younger Mims had a degree from UNC-Chapel Hill and worked for the same company for 25 years.

On the night of the shooting, the elder Mims had left the home after the game when his son's demeanor worsened to the point that for the first time in his life, he called his father a "sonofab----h."

Mims Jr. said he drove around for hours, hoping his son had cooled off. He arranged to have police meet him at the home so he could get some clothes and sleep with his grandson in Concord.

Were you worried about your safety? Keeton asked. Did you flash back to the time when police came to take away the guns?

"In the back of my mind, I thought of a lot of things," Mims said. "He had never been a threat to me in my entire life. ... I did not feel I was in imminent danger.

"At the same time, I did not want to have an episode that we would both regret."

This story was originally published April 4, 2018 at 1:58 PM with the headline "Ex-Myers Park teacher testifies police shooting of his son 'didn't have to happen'."