The Rev. Nathaniel Cole dead at 56
By Bill Beene
Of the St. Louis American
An innocent life was sacrificed and another crippled Monday at the expense of a high-speed police chase in North St. Louis.
The Rev. Nathaniel Cole, age 56, pastor of God’s Revealing Tabernacle, died at the scene when a suspect fleeing police in an SUV slammed into Cole’s Chevy Blazer.
Cole’s wife, Annie, suffered two broken legs in the collision. After surgeries, she has been upgraded from critical to serious condition.
“He was the perfect family guy. The kids were polite. They did all the right things,” said longtime neighbor Virvus Jones of the Coles, who lived on Partridge Street in North St. Louis for more than 25 years.
“They were the friendliest people on the block – the kind of people you want to be your neighbors.”
They were on their way to Cole’s church when tragedy struck.
The fleeing driver, Robert Smith, age 23, also died as a result of the collision.
According to police, Smith, who had a lengthy police record, was erratically operating a Ford Bronco, which prompted them to pull him over.
When officers approached his vehicle near 14th and Salisbury, Smith allegedly pointed a pistol at the officers. Similar allegations have been used by city police in recent weeks to justify shootings or pursuits.
Police did not shoot at Smith. The officers returned to their car and pursued his vehicle. One of two other suspects in the car allegedly fired a shot at police who joined the chase near North Broadway at Adelaide.
Smith’s Bronco struck and overturned another SUV, afflicting the driver with minor injuries, then kept going before fatally colliding with the Coles on their way to church.
St. Louis City Police Chief Joseph Mokwa said the deadly chase was warranted because the suspect allegedly pointed a gun at an officer.
County NAACP Region IV Director Gill Ford called Mokwa’s judgment premature since a full investigation had not been completed.
“If you wait until the end of the investigation and make a determination, that’s reasonable,” Ford said at a press conference held Tuesday outside Cole’s church at 2900 Cass Ave.
“To have made a determination as early as he did has created a lot of concern for the family – and everyone involved – whether or not this is going to be a fair and unbiased investigation.”
The NAACP, apparently questioning the events that led up the chase, has called on eyewitnesses to phone in with information by calling the city NAACP at (314) 361-8600. The group plans to include eyewitness accounts in its own investigation of the incident.
For its investigation, the NAACP is asking the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department for a copy of the complete dispatch audio, an interview with the officer supervising the chase and a copy of the city’s chase policy.
“We’re not talking about what police discovered when they ran a clearance on who they stopped,” Ford said.
“We’re talking about this particular window of a situation. We want to know what exactly made the determination. If a gun was discovered after the chase, then it had nothing to do with why the chase started.”
The NAACP recently called for a metropolitan-wide police pursuit policy following the dangerous county-to-city pursuit of Edmon Burns Jr., the notorious victim of a vicious, televised police beating.
Regardless of the outcome of this investigation, Gill said, a family and loved ones have to deal with the loss of a community leader.
“This happens too often in St. Louis,” said Harold Crumpton, president of the city NAACP.
“We asked the question: ‘Was the capture of these persons of interest to the police worth the lives of the innocent, law-abiding citizens who were on their way to a house of worship?’ I think not.”
“We understand that if someone poses an imminent threat to someone else that police have the necessity to chase,” Ford said.
“When you talk about a chase that basically starts off with a traffic violation, somebody swerving and you’re going to compromise the safety of other folks based on that – then we have a problem.”
Sticking to his guns about the suspect’s presentation of a handgun, Mokwa said if the police “allow people to point guns at police officers or citizens of this community and we’re not going to take any action and it cost your family and there isn’t any action taken, you’re really going to question what kind of leadership decisions we’re making.”
Speaking to the symptoms of the larger picture of poverty in the city, Mayor Francis G. Slay pointed out that all of the suspects in recent high-profile police chases have criminal records. Slay said in two weeks he will unveil an anti-crime plan.
Slay also said the state needs better programs for prisoners hitting the streets.
“The state cannot parole dangerous inmates and send them into our neighborhoods with no ability to make an honest living,” Slay said.
“The state should commit to a strong prisoner reentry program and more supervision of convicts on parole or probation. Both will reduce crime and save state money.”
The wake for the Rev. Cole will be held Sunday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at God’s Revealing Tabernacle, 2900 Cass Ave. Funeral services will be held 11 a.m. Monday at Solomon Temple M.B. Church, 4859 St. Louis Ave.
