Aaron Miguel Conell, a Pasadena resident who was 24 at the time of the killing, is charged with one count each of murder, attempted murder, and assault with a semiautomatic firearm, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The hearing is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. in Department H before Judge Rupa S. Goswami.
Cooper, 64, was the younger brother of Michael Cooper, the Pasadena-raised Basketball Hall of Famer who won five NBA championships with the Lakers during the Showtime era of the 1980s. Mickey Cooper died of a gunshot wound to the head at the park, according to the medical examiner’s office.
Pasadena police have described the fatal shooting as one of three apparently random violent acts attributed to Conell in the fall of 2023. Prosecutors allege he shot a man in the neck at the same park on October 29 of that year, causing life-threatening injuries, and pointed a semiautomatic firearm at a man seated in a car at a Pasadena gas station on November 5.
On the morning of November 18, the department’s ShotSpotter gunshot detection system — since renamed SoundThinking — alerted officers to gunfire at the park in the 700 block of East Washington Boulevard at approximately 4:10 a.m., according to police. Officers found Cooper with multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police arrested Conell later that day with assistance from the U.S. Marshal’s Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force, the department’s SWAT team, and a K-9 unit, according to the department. Investigators recovered a loaded 9-millimeter semiautomatic firearm from his vehicle that they believe was used in all three incidents, police said.
“Aaron Conell is diabolically evil, that’s the only motive we’ve come up with so far,” Lt. Keith Gomez of the Pasadena Police Department’s robbery-homicide unit said at a November 2023 press conference. Conell has no prior felony convictions and no gang affiliations, according to police.
Michael Cooper, who was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2024 and whose No. 21 jersey the Lakers retired in 2025, grew up near Washington Park. He and Mickey played basketball there as children.
“I can’t understand why this young man took his life,” Michael Cooper said after the shooting. “He had nothing.”
Cooper said his brother had struggled with addiction and often spent time at the park. Mickey Cooper had never mentioned Conell’s name, his brother said.
Washington Park, one of Pasadena’s oldest public parks, sits at the corner of Washington Boulevard and El Molino Avenue in the city’s northwest. The killing prompted the city to bolster safety patrols at the park, and Pasadena Police Chief Eugene Harris addressed security measures at the January 2024 opening of the park’s new Community House.
Conell has been held in custody since his arrest. Bail is set at $4.25 million. If convicted on all counts, he faces more than 50 years to life in state prison, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
The Pasadena Courthouse is located at 300 E. Walnut St. The court information line is 626-396-3314.
The next step in the case depends on Wednesday’s hearing. If the judge determines sufficient evidence exists, Conell will be ordered to stand trial.
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