OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — Overland Park Police Officer Mike Mosher died at the hands of 38-year-old Phillip Carney.
Now, Carney’s mother has broken her silence about her son’s struggle with mental illness and addiction, as well as her attempts to help him.
Julie Carney didn’t recognize the person caught on camera on that tragic day when the two men died from gunfire. Her son’s life ended May 3 much differently than it began.
“He was born a lovely young boy who wanted to be a baseball player, and he was very artistic and talented, very sweet-natured,” Carney said about her son.
One of five children raised in a loving home, Phillip Carney’s sweet nature was no match for the demons caused by mental illness and drug addiction.
“You take this lovely beautiful soul, and drugs and alcohol steals them away,” Carney said. “Steals them, stolen, gone.”
Carney first noticed her son’s depression when he was around 11 years old. She tried to get him help, but he wouldn’t go.
“To him it was like you’re saying, ‘I’m broken,’ and ‘I’m not broken,’ you know?”
It would be the first attempt of many, but privacy laws, including HIPAA, stood in her way.
“What do you have to do to get that?” Carney asked. “I mean, you’re reaching out desperately trying to get him some help. They’re adults.”
Drug and alcohol addiction that started in his early 20’s only made Phillip Carney’s mental health issues worse. Her lovely young boy turning into a violent man. The last time he was allowed to live with his parents was 2014.
“He was arrested here,” Carney said. “He had thrown his dad down to the ground in a fit of rage, saying he will kill all of us, and that was very frightening.”
An order of protection followed, along with other arrests. The last one came in Douglas County for robbing a cigar shop and assaulting a police officer.
“I don’t think he should have bonded out,” Carney said of the charge for assault on a police officer. “I think if you are willing to do that, you’re already over the top.”
That proved to be true a month later, when Phillip Carney shot Mosher after the Overland Park officer pulled him over for a suspected hit-and-run crash.
Both men died when Phillip Carney pulled out a gun and Mosher returned fire.
While she believes that if the court had intervened and she had the power to get her son help, Julie Carney said the Douglas County prosecutor and the judge in her son’s last case tried to prevent his release, but he was bailed out by a friend.
This grieving mother believes a change needs to happen at the legislative level to help parents get sick children help and keep dangerous people locked up.