CLARKSDALE, Miss. — While one father rushed to see his son at the hospital, another got a knock at the door.
“It hurts to see your child in that kind of predicament,” Alonzo Hardiman, father of Clarksdale officer shot in the head, said.
“They wouldn’t tell me nothing,” Johnny Robinson Sr, father of shooting suspect, said. “They just told me he was in trouble. Then later on they tell me he in a robbery and shooting.”
Two dads on two different sides of a gunshot.
“I used to say, well Derrick, your main focus is to just come home in the evening after you go to work,” Hardiman said.
However, Corporal Derrick Couch never made it home Saturday night.
Clarksdale police said one of the men caught on surveillance video shot Corporal Couch in the face moments after a convenience store was robbed.
“The chief called me yesterday and told me they got them,” Hardiman told WREG.
“I feel bad for what happened to the officer and the ones that got robbed in the store,” Robinson said.
Robinson knew police were looking for his son in connection with the shooting.
Quander: As a parent, how do you decide to turn your child in?
Robinson: How did I decide to turn him in? I didn’t decide– he just — look, if the police are looking for him, I’d rather for him to go in and talk to the police and see what’s going on.
Johnny Robinson, Jr. is accused of robbing the Corner Grocery store twice and charged with attempted murder of a law enforcement officer.
“Most of the people around here that know me — they know I’m a church going, fella. They know I raised him up. He ain’t no bad person,” Robinson explained. “He just got with a bad crowd if he did it. He ain’t no bad person.”
Robinson does not know if his son is guilty.
However, the suspected shooter’s father said his son should face the consequences if he gunned down Corporal Couch.
“Mines is on life support, but yours, his life is gone, it’s just the same, it’s just gone,” Hardiman said.