Manslaughter plea entered in Lexington Park stabbing

Man charged faces 18-month term in jail

Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008

Eric Antonio Brooks Jr. was indicted for first-degree murder in the killing of Edmond Travis Copeland, whose brother was a Department of Defense police officer at Patuxent River Naval Air Station and hosted the gathering at his Lexington Park residence.

A dispute involving partygoers and people from Jacqueline Davis’ nearby home, where Brooks was a visitor, led to a fight that came into her home, a prosecutor said at Monday’s plea hearing.

‘‘There were a number of masters at arms from the United States Navy there” at the party, St. Mary’s State’s Attorney Daniel White said of the August 2006 incident at the Forest Run neighborhood.

James Copeland and Davis tried to quell the disruption arising from her daughter’s being called home from the party, the prosecutor said, but a fight between Edmond Copeland and a teenage boy spilled over into Davis’ home, where at the time Brooks was making a sandwich and holding a kitchen knife.

‘‘There is no evidence at all that it was a life-threatening situation,” White said of the scuffle that Brooks encountered. ‘‘It appears from the evidence he was using a knife to break up a fight, ... to get [Copeland] off his friend.”

Brooks cut Copeland on the buttocks, a hand and in his side, the prosecutor said.

Outside the courtroom, White criticized the response of the partygoers when civilian authorities responded to the attack on Copeland, who had suffered a fatal chest wound to his aorta. The visitor from Virginia was 25 years old.

‘‘Their behavior was despicable. The masters at arms ran from the [local] police, hid from the police and lied to the police, when the police got there,” White said. ‘‘There were also Department of Defense police officers. They all ran and they all lied, except for James Copeland.”

James Copeland and Brooks’ father, a public safety officer at St. Mary’s College, shook hands outside the courtroom, where St. Mary’s Circuit Judge Michael J. Stamm said his acceptance of the plea agreement hinges on whether it is supported by the findings in a presentence investigation.

Eric Brooks, now 20, faces the common law charge’s maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, suspended to 18 months in jail and five years of supervised probation.

He was jailed Monday to await his sentencing hearing.

Defense lawyer David W. Densford said his client later would seek work-release privileges.