Woman indicted in son’s shooting

The phone call lasted almost 16 minutes.

Within a minute of that phone call ending, both Linda and son officer Chris Cooney called 911 to report that Kevin Cooney had been shot.

Authorities think that while the 16-minute phone call took place, Kevin Cooney lay bleeding on a living room floor with a gaping hole in his neck from a bullet wound that would leave him paralyzed.

It is unknown at what point during the call Chris Cooney learned that his brother had been shot.

On Friday, a grand jury indictment charged Linda Cooney with three felonies in connection with the shooting of Kevin Cooney last summer, including attempted murder, battery with use of a deadly weapon resulting in substantial bodily harm-domestic violence and intimidating a witness.

Authorities say that on June 27, after an argument over his ex-girlfriend, Linda Cooney shot her son. It was the same handgun she used to kill the boy’s father in Florida 20 years ago. She was acquitted of murder by a jury partly based on testimony from Kevin Cooney, who witnessed the shooting.

Meanwhile, Kevin Cooney did not testify to the grand jury, but his brother did, the indictment showed. Transcripts of that testimony won’t be made public for several weeks.

Prosecutors said Kevin Cooney has not cooperated with authorities. But he did tell medical staff and his ex-girlfriend that his mother shot him, prosecutors said.

Authorities added the charge of intimidating a witness after Linda Cooney violated a no contact order. Prosecutors said she had Chris Cooney hold a cellphone to Kevin Cooney’s ear while he was in a rehabilitation hospital. When asked about that by a Las Vegas judge, Chris Cooney said he did not “recall specifically having done so.”

Prosecutors sought the charge because since that phone call, Kevin Cooney has not spoken to anyone about what happened when he was shot.

Linda Cooney’s lawyer, Edward Miley, declined to comment.

An arraignment hearing was set for April 26 before Judge Abbi Silver. Linda Cooney remained free on $100,000 bail. Prosecutors had sought to raise her bail to $200,000.

A police report detailed the 911 calls made by Linda and Chris Cooney.

Chris Cooney told the dispatcher “his mother just called him and said she was attacked by his older brother at his house and then she shot him,” the police report said. The dispatcher asked whether Linda Cooney shot him or whether Kevin Cooney shot himself. Chris Cooney said he did not know.

A minute before, Linda Cooney had told another 911 dispatcher that Kevin Cooney had been shot in the neck with a handgun.

The dispatcher asked Linda Cooney whether somebody shot her son or whether he shot himself. “Linda replied ‘No, no I’m scared to say something,’ ” the report said, and the 911 call ended.

When police arrived at their Summerlin home, a sobbing Linda Cooney was helped outside of the house while paramedics worked on the son.

“It’s my fault. It’s my fault. The gun. It’s my fault,” she said, according to the police report.

In a taped interview with detectives, Linda Cooney first told them she didn’t know what part of the house she was in when Kevin Cooney was shot. She later said she was getting a bottle of water in the kitchen.

She said she didn’t hear a gunshot, a bang or anything. She recalled hearing him say, “Mom.”

Linda Cooney said she found him in the living room, on the floor with a towel under his head and his knees up. There were no guns near him, she told police. Earlier that morning, about 1 a.m., she said she had gotten up to use the bathroom, and that she and Kevin Cooney, a 6-foot-9-inch nightclub bouncer, began arguing about the ex-girlfriend.

Linda Cooney told detectives he yelled at her, grabbed her, and threw her on the couch. She said he had his hand clenched and had a black semiautomatic handgun in the back of his pants.

“He continued yelling at her and punched her in the chest, causing a large bruise,” a police report quotes her as saying.

Detectives asked about her repeatedly saying “It’s my fault.”

She said “that she was quoting what her son Kevin said to her. He told her ‘Mom, it’s my (expletive) fault.’ ”

Kevin Cooney’s condition is described as an incomplete quadriplegic, meaning he has some movement in his arms and legs. According to court testimony, he has improved since the shooting and can speak again.

This was not the first domestic violence incident between the mother and son. In September 2002, a report showed Las Vegas police were called to the Cooney home after an argument between Linda and Kevin Cooney resulted in her slapping his wrist with a kitchen knife. He wasn’t cut. She then slapped him in the face with her hand, the report said.

Kevin Cooney then grabbed a .45-caliber handgun and told his mother to stay away from him. Linda Cooney was arrested, but the case was later dropped.

In 1992, Linda Cooney shot and killed her ex-husband, James Cooney, a prominent Florida attorney. The two had been through a bitter divorce and were engaged in a custody battle over their two sons. Linda Cooney said he was attacking her with a knife when she shot him.

Kevin Cooney, then 10 years old, was a key witness in the case. He testified at the trial that he didn’t know if his father had a knife, but that he saw something shiny, according to newspaper reports.

When asked whether his father had a knife in his hands when he saw his father’s body on the ground, he testified he didn’t know, according to newspaper reports.

However, twice before the trial, he had told police that his father had no knife.