Philly Rapper Cool C Granted Stay of Execution

Update: Despite numerous national reports today of his impending execution tomorrow (including ours below), Philadelphia rapper Cool C was granted a stay of execution by a Philadelphia judge last month.

On December 3, 2014, attorneys for rapper Cool C (aka Christopher Roney) filed an emergency motion for a stay of execution. On December 5, 2014, it was granted by Philadelphia District Court judge L. Felipe Restrepo. Documents below.

Original: The Village Voice reports that Philadelphia golden-age rapper Cool C (aka Christopher Roney) will be executed tomorrow by lethal injection.

In 1996 he was convicted on charges of first-degree murder in the shooting of Police Officer Lauretha Vaird. The situation occurred when he and two other men were attempting to rob a Philadelphia PNC Bank. Roney shot Vaird as she stepped through the bank’s entrance responding to the call. More on what followed from The Village Voice:

On November 1, 1996, Christopher “Cool C” Roney was sentenced to death. He’s since been an inmate of Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution at Greene. Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell originally slated Roney’s death for March 9, 2006, but litigation issues caused it to be indefinitely delayed. Tomorrow, slightly more than nineteen years after the attempted robbery, Roney will be executed.

The article goes on to talk about Roney’s influence on the Philadelphia rap scene, and ends with a tribute of sorts to Officer Vaird, who The Village Voice reports, was the first police officer in Philly’s history to be killed while responding to a call.

To this day, the fallen policewoman, Lauretha Vaird, is remembered as one of Philadelphia’s most beloved officers. A mother of two sons — eleven and seventeen at the time of her death — she changed careers from an assistant to special-education teachers at Germantown’s Pickett Middle School to serve her city in her mid thirties. The Officer Down Memorial Page created in her honor relates several stories of her heroism and the love she inspired. In 2010, Vaird was honored in Philadelphia’s Feltonville neighborhood with a “Celebration of Life” at the Boys and Girls Club, which was also named after her. The Vaird Foundation, founded by fellow officer Kimberly Byrd, runs prospective law enforcement career mentoring and college assistance programs and has given thousands of dollars in college aid.

Read more of the article here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC11wBeTy8c