Peoria police say man's unfortunate death was not a homicide. Coroner disagrees

On Oct. 29, 2023, 24-year-old Kobe Johnson was struck and killed by a car in the 200 block of East Thrush Avenue. In the days that followed, Peoria County Coroner Jamie Harwood ruled his death a homicide.

The Peoria Police Department did not.

Johnson's death is a rare instance of a coroner and police department having differing opinions on a homicide ruling.

Peoria police recorded 25 homicides in Peoria in 2023 — tied with 2019 for the second-most ever in the city. Johnson's death was not included in that total.

The circumstances surrounding Johnson's death are complicated, but the answer to why the police and coroner had different opinions on the homicide ruling is relatively simple.

Why the Peoria Police Department and Peoria County coroner ruled differently on Kobe Johnson's death

The night Johnson was killed he was attending a house party in the 200 block of East Thrush Avenue.

Nine gunshots rang out at the party and people, including Johnson, began to flee and scatter into the street.

During the chaos, Johnson was hit and killed by a vehicle. The driver fled the scene.

This is where the difference of opinion in ruling the case a homicide begins.

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Generally, in the state of Illinois, when someone flees the scene of an accident, it is a felony. But in this case, because the driver was fleeing gunshots, no charges were filed against them.

The police ruled Johnson being hit by a car an accident, not a homicide. This is because, as Peoria County Jamie Harwood explains, when police look at ruling a case as a homicide, they look for intent. In this case, the driver did not intend to kill Johnson and had valid reason to flee the scene.

The Peoria Police Department told the Journal Star it adheres to the National Incident-Based Reporting System's definition of homicides when categorizing crimes. Those definitions are as follows:

• Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter — The willful (nonnegligent) killing of one human being by another.

• Negligent manslaughter — The killing of another person through negligence.

• Justifiable homicide — The killing of a perpetrator of a serious criminal offense by a peace officer in the line of duty, or the killing, during the commission of a serious criminal offense, of the perpetrator by a private individual.

In Harwood's ruling, he does not necessarily look for intent the same way as the police department. He says when deciding if a case is a homicide he looks for one person's actions leading to the death of another.

In this case, the person shooting the weapon caused Johnson's death and, therefore, Harwood deems it a homicide.

"When we look at this case of Kobe Johnson — who unfortunately lost his life — another individual raised his firearm, shot the firearm and the events that followed led to Kobe Johnson's death," Harwood said. "In that case, when we look at the premise like that, we have to rule it a homicide because the actions of another person caused someone's death."

Johnson is survived by his three children, seven siblings and his parents.

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The person who fired the gun that night has been since been charged with crimes. Murder is not one of them, however.

Demetrius Drummond, 35, was arrested by Peoria police on Dec. 28 and is the man who fired a weapon, causing Johnson to be "inadvertently run over," according to police.

Drummond was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, reckless discharge of a firearm, unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, and unlawful use of a weapon and aggravated battery.

"We have a felon in possession of a firearm and a reckless discharge of a firearm, both of those things caused another person's death," Harwood said. "On the coroner's side of that, taking the word intent out of it completely, because he did not intend when he fired the gun for this guy to get run over by a car — he had no thought about it, I am sure of it — but his actions as a felon who is carrying a firearm, all alleged, caused another person's death, so we rule it a homicide."

Harwood said his ruling of a homicide as manner of death would be discussed between attorneys in court with the death certificate as discoverable, but added that a coroner's ruling would not be admissible as far as a criminal charge goes.

"It doesn't impede or impact the criminal charge what we put on the death certificate as far as manner of death is concerned, but the cause of death is," Harwood said.

In this case, Johnson's cause of death was blunt force trauma as a result of being struck by a vehicle.

Drummond had been previously arrested in Peoria County for unlawful use of a weapon and felon in possession of a weapon in 2016, 2009 and 2007.

Johnson's death provides a resoundingly unique situation for a coroner. Harwood said if you took the case to all the coroners in the state, there would probably be a split decision on whether it was a homicide or not.

"We all come from different backgrounds — my background is in trauma and critical care, so I have a different perspective. I am coming at it from a medical background, a trauma background," Harwood said. "Other coroners across the state come at it from law enforcement perspective or as a funeral director. Fifty to 60% of our coroners in the state are funeral directors. While that education is different, we're going to have different opinions on manner of death."

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This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Why Peoria police and coroner had different rulings on a man's death