A Pennsylvania State Police firearms instructor who fatally shot a trooper from Northeast Philadelphia during a training accident last September has been ordered to serve two weeks in prison, followed by three to 18 months of house arrest.
Relatives of slain Trooper David Kedra were upset by the leniency of Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge Garrett D. Page’s ruling. According to a published report, the victim’s sister, Christine Kedra, shouted at a deputy district attorney outside the hearing, “Two weeks? My brother’s life is worth two weeks?”
The prosecutor reportedly did not request prison time for the defendant, retired Cpl. Richard Schroeter.
Schroeter, 43, pleaded guilty in May to five counts of reckless endangerment and was facing up to five to 10 years in prison, but no mandatory minimum. In addition to prison and house arrest, Page ordered him to serve four years probation and 150 hours of community service.
David Kedra was one of five troopers in Schroeter’s firearms training class at the Public Safety Training Campus in Plymouth Meeting last Sept. 30 when the instructor accidentally fired a live round while discussing “trigger mechanics,” authorities have said. The bullet struck Kedra in the abdomen. He died at Temple University Hospital that night.
During a four-month investigation, a grand jury determined that Schroeter breached safety protocols, but the jury stopped short of recommending involuntary manslaughter charges. District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman followed the jury’s recommendation, maintaining that there wasn’t enough evidence to conclude that Schroeter acted with conscious disregard for human life.
Kedra was a Burholme native and graduate of Presentation BVM, Roman Catholic and Temple. He had recently bought a home in Chester County with his fiance. He had served two years with the state police. ••
