Brother of ex-Lakers star Michael Cooper gunned down in Pasadena park. Suspect, 24, arrested
The brother of former Lakers great Michael Cooper was fatally shot Saturday in the same Pasadena park where the siblings played basketball as youngsters.
Cooper, a basketball analyst for KABC-TV Channel 7, confirmed to the station that the victim of the shooting at Washington Park was his brother, Mickey, 64. Michael said he and Mickey played at the park as children.
Detectives identified a person of interest only a few hours after the slaying. They arrested 24-year-old Aaron Miguel Conell on a separate, unrelated crime while they continued to gather evidence pertaining to the killing of Mickey Cooper.
“Believing this person posed an immediate threat to the public, detectives coordinated an arrest operation with members of the U.S. Marshal’s Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Taskforce, PPD SWAT, and PPD K-9 Unit,” the Pasadena Police Department said in a statement issued Monday evening.
The booking charge for Conell, a Pasadena resident, was amended Monday to include murder. Police do not know the motive for the killing.
Police responded to Saturday’s shooting around 4 a.m. in the 700 block of East Washington Boulevard after being alerted by the ShotSpotter sound-detection system, which recognizes loud, repetitive sounds that may be gunshots, according to the Pasadena Police Department. The man was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
The ShotSpotter system was approved by the Pasadena City Council and implemented in early 2022 after officials were alarmed by a spate of violence that included a stray bullet taking the life of Iran Moreno-Balvaneda, a 13-year-old boy playing video games in his home.
The teen was struck in the 900 block of North Raymond Avenue on Saturday. Three to five shots were fired outside his bedroom and at least one bullet struck the boy, according to police.
Pasadena police documented 60 shootings with four people killed and 25 others injured from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2020, a figure that the department said increased by about 10% in 2021.
More than 700 firearms were confiscated in 2020 and 2021, many from vehicles, waistbands and from residences as a result of search warrants, Pasadena Deputy Chief Cheryl Moody said at a news conference after Iran’s slaying.
“The threat of gun violence is a true danger, and the Pasadena Police Department is working diligently to get guns off the streets and out of the hands of those who intend to harm others,” Moody said. The department will continue in its commitment to bring on extra patrols and intelligence gathering “to combat this rash of shootings.”
Michael and Mickey Cooper were raised in Pasadena primarily by their grandmother, Ardessie Butler, after their parents, Marshall and Jean, divorced when the boys were young. Jean, who had 10 siblings, worked as a registered nurse, and the boys grew up in a hectic household.
In Pasadena, shootings rose 22% between 2020 and 2021, from 60 to 73, according to the police department. Seven were killed in 2020 and six more last year.
“There were 18 of us scrambling around the table for dinner,” Michael said during his 12-year Lakers career. “And if you didn’t get there in time, you didn’t get no chicken.”
Michael Cooper, 67, went on to play on all five of the Lakers’ world championship teams in the 1980s and was named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year in 1986-87. He later became an assistant coach with the Lakers, the head coach of the WNBA Sparks, leading them to league titles in 2001 and 2002, and the head coach of the USC women’s basketball team.
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