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Englewood Residents Say Cop was Trigger Happy
Produced by Rob Wildeboer on Friday, September 26, 2008
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Chicago Police receive a briefing on Chicago's South Side earlier this year. Englewood residents are questioning police tactics. (AP/Paul Beaty)
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There's no dispute over the fact that 17-year-old Marvin Williams had a gun when he was shot by a Chicago police officer last week. But neighborhood residents who saw the shooting are convinced the cop was trigger happy. And as Chicago Public Radio's Robert Wildeboer reports, residents are just as sure that the officer won't be punished.
A young woman named Kenyatta was walking from the bus stop near Ashland and 70th on Chicago's South Side last week when she saw the police approach someone a couple short blocks ahead of her.
KENYATTA: So I heard the police officer saying, drop it, drop the gun, drop the gun. So I guess, I think the boy dropped the gun and tried to take off but the police just shot him. Bang bang. Two times.
Now Kenyatta is sitting in her Aunt Karen's living room. There's a card table loaded with boxes of candy that they're selling. They also have two crock pots, one is filled with ground meat and the other has melted cheese so they can sell nacho's. Karen's house is just a couple doors down from where Marvin Williams was killed and she says she was outside and saw it happen.
KAREN: Now don't get me wrong, the young man had a gun but at the time he shot him he didn't have one.
Several witnesses confirm he had a gun but they're adamant he never pointed it at the officers. Karen says that's just common sense.
KAREN: These boys out here not gonna to, I mean they not gonna to hold it in their hand. They see a police. They fenna drop it. They fenna throw it. See that's where it is, my son was in an incident where he was sittin' on the porch and he got caught with a gun but the police came up on him and told him to raise his hands, check his pocket, he threw the gun, the police found the gun and he went to jail.
Karen says that's the way it's supposed to work, and if not?
KAREN: You could have fired a warning shot. You could have shot him in his leg to break him down.
Everyone I talked to on the street said the same thing. Why not shoot him in the leg? But police officers say that kind of thing only happens on T.V. unless you're a sharpshooter or you've got a rifle with a scope. Karen and Kenyatta say the officer needs to be fired, and even do some time, but they don't think anything will happen to him. And Kenyatta, who was walking from the bus, is bitter about what happened right after the shooting.
KENYATTA: The big fat hundred pound man jumped on his back and put his knee in his back and put handcuffs on him.
Everyone in the neighborhood mentions the knee in the back. And Kenyatta says then the police officer turned his gun on residents who started rushing to see what had happened. Kenyatta points over the table of candy and out the window at a young man sitting across the street.
KENYATTA: He run to go and check up on the boy so the police put the gun up like you better get the "f" back or I'll pop you, too. He told that to two other guys out there.
There are about a dozen men across the street sitting on steps and just hanging around on the sidewalk. They're actually just coming back from Williams' funeral. A few serve weed to the customers who drive up. They stick to weed because it's a lighter charge if they're caught and it's of less interest to police. I ask them about the shooting and they all insist that Williams wasn't trying to shoot. They're admitted drug dealers so they're not too keen on giving their last names but one guy Chris argues it from the police point of view.
CHRIS: What do I supposed to do in that split second when I see you reach for something.
A guy who calls himself Little Joe tries to recreate the scene and argues the officers could have just grabbed him.
SOT: When your car pull up...they right here...
Another guy who goes by the name pork jumps in and says the second cop on the scene never fired, he was playing it out, like he was trained to do. The Independent Police Review Authority is investigating the shooting and I ask Pork how he thinks it will turn out. He just laughs.
PORK: How you think it's gonna turn out. You know how it's gonna turn out. Ain't s*** gonna happen.
Pork says he witnessed the whole thing and the police never bothered to ask him what he saw.
PORK: They don't care what we got to say because we from the hood. We got records. They figure you got a record you don't know s***, you're word don't mean nothing. You're black. They don't give a f*** about us, period.
But Pork admits he wouldn't have talked to the cops if they had asked him. But even Chris, the one person who argues for the police, even he thinks the investigation is a sham. He thinks the investigation was completed the day of the shooting and the outcome has already been fixed.
I'm Robert Wildeboer, Chicago Public Radio.
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Tas, Albany Park // Friday, September 26, 2008 @ 12:51 PM
Seriously, are you kidding me? If someone has a gun and is pointing it, (they aren't even sure if he dropped it)at you-what would you do? Sometimes people expect the police to put their lives on the line in the hopes they are dealing with a rational human being...in this case I don't think they were and the police man shouldn't be disciplined. The kid was 17 with a gun; would you feel safe, would you shoot him in the leg, what if you missed and he still had the gun...this whole article is ridiculous.
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Torrence Winfrey, Washington Park // Monday, September 29, 2008 @ 12:10 PM
This article is not ridiculous. "Accidents" like this happen way to often to minorities. I remember when the guy, who was a college graduate by the way, was "accidentally" killed on the side of the Dan Ryan because the police mistakenly saw a gun. I remember a couple of months ago on the West side another kid was "accidentally" killed when he ran away from police. My guess is that you aren't a member of this group who "accidentally" gets killed quite often. Then maybe you would understand why it's such a big deal. I mean, when was the last time you heard about a white kid accidentally getting shot in the back and killed? And even if you did, do you think it would be a little blurb on the news? Or an article for Public News Radio? Just think about it.
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RL, Chicago // Wednesday, October 01, 2008 @ 6:46 PM
I second Torrence's statement.
Children and young people living in these areas are victims on a daily basis. They are subjected to brutality, verbal abuse, and sometimes death by the very people who are supposed to protect them: Chicago Police Officers.
17 year olds make mistakes, they are human. Carrying a weapon doesn't give an officer the go ahead to kill you. They don't have that right.
Unfortunately, until real equality and justice is achieved in this country and race lines do truly disappear, these events will continue to happen.
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