Nicola Cotton, 24, is a policewoman from the Hurricane Katrina stricken city New Orleans. Sadly enough, this aspiring officer was shot dead yesterday January 28 by a man named Bernell Johnson who relatives said is a paranoid schizophrenic transient with no history of sexual assault.
On Monday morning, officer Nicola Cotton, 24, approached a middle-aged man sitting in the parking lot a Central City strip of stores, Police Department spokesman Sgt. Joe Narcisse said. Police Superintendent Warren Riley said the man appeared homeless.
Surveillance footage shows Cotton motioning casually about 10 a.m. for the man to come near, police said. At that point, for reasons unclear, he pounced, Narcisse said.
For seven minutes, the pair tussled on the pavement, police said. Cotton called for backup on her radio at some point during the struggle, but the man wrestled her gun away from her and shot her before help could arrive, police said.
"He fired several times," Narcisse said. "She goes down to the ground. He just stands there, over her, looking down."
He fired again, unloading her service weapon of all its bullets, Narcisse said.
Cotton -- a shy, soft-spoken and ambitious young officer patrolling some of the city's most violent corridors -- was pronounced dead minutes later at University Hospital. She became the second female NOPD officer killed in the line of duty.
Source: Times-Picayune