Friends and relatives of two African-Americans fatally shot by police in Chicago issued an emotional plea for justice on Sunday, calling the incident the latest proof that the city’s officers are far too quick to use deadly force.
Family members held a press conference following Saturday’s police shootings of Bettie Jones, 55, a mother of five, and Quintonio LeGrier, a 19-year-old engineering student.
Both were shot and killed after police were called to a private residence in response to a call about a domestic dispute.
News reports said the teen struggled with mental health issues and had been threatening his father with a baseball bat.
A short time after arriving on the scene, police opened fire, striking LeGrier, who they said was charging down the stairs carrying the bat.
Jones, LeGrier’s downstairs neighbor, who opened the door for officers as they arrived, also was struck by a police bullet and died on Saturday at the hospital.
Separately, police fatally shot another man within hours of the other two shootings, news reports said, some of which said the man was armed, but had dropped his weapon and had his arms raised when police opened fire.
Many in this midwestern city — already reeling from other incidents in which police are said to have been too ready to pull the trigger on their service weapons — condemned the shooting.
“This needs to stop,” LeGrier’s mother Janet Cooksey told reporters on Sunday.
“No mother should have to bury her child, especially under these circumstances. The police are supposed to serve and protect us,” Cooksey said through tears. “Is it a badge to kill?”
She added, at the press conference attended by a couple of dozen people, that her son was “a good child” and an honor student.
“Seven times my son was shot, once in the buttocks — that showed he was turning away,” the grieving woman said.
Bettie Jones’ nephew, Jahmal Cole, in an interview with CNN, described her as a church-going grandmother and community pillar.
Cole said young college student Quintonio LeGrier “was trying to make a difference, and he was a role model — not only to the people in his community, but to his family.”
The Chicago police, he said, “used deadly force in a situation where it was not called for, and I think that there needs to be some swift justice.”
“Any time an officer uses force the public deserves answers, and regardless of the circumstances, we all grieve any time there is a loss of life in our city,” a statement released by the office of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
RSS