Discussion: Chicago Police 'Accidentally' Kill Grandmother Who Worked For Anti-Violence Groups

Discussion for article #244149

There were at least 9 shots fired. 7 hit the young man one the grandmother and another went thru a door, a wall and lodged in an interior wall of the grandmother’s home. And the police call that “accidental”? One or two shots maybe but 9?? That officer emptied his weapon I suspect.

3 Likes

It’s getting bad when you have to think twice about calling the police, who are definitely not peace officers.

4 Likes

If this was accidental, then it could be said all the other black deaths were on purpose?

“Why do (police) have to shoot first and ask questions later?” asked a family friend.

Says it all.

6 Likes

Of course, this story illustrates the difference between white communities where citizens and police alike believe police to be protectors and people living in inner city black neighborhoods where police perceive citizens to be threatening. When a father has an altercation with his teenage son in a white community the police come, break up the fight and talk the two in to counselling. In the black community when a father has an altercation with his son and the police come, one or both is likely to end up in the morgue. Crime would drop off dramatically if black citizens could view police as protectors to call first and police could view themselves as protectors of the citizens they are supposed to serve. .

BTW, fathers and teenage sons of all races have been having altercations since before time. Disagreements between parents and their children are a normal part of growing up. Arguing with your father shouldn’t be a capital offense.

4 Likes

I wouldn’t think twice about calling cops for a “domestic” dispute. I’d think three times, and then I’d start over at one. I know a child who is autism spectrum who can be violent, and a psychologist advised parents to call police rather than attempt to restrain the child. But police in their area nearly killed a man in a case of mistaken identity a few years ago (they did kill both his dogs and terrify his mother-in-law). So…would you call the cops? Wouldn’t you be afraid that any sudden movement, any shiny object, any nonverbal behavior could be interpreted as aggression and lead to this shoot first ask questions later approach?

3 Likes

My father in law is a retired fire fighter. He’s a good man. When his son, who suffers from mental illness, started threatening the rest of the house with a knife, he called the fire department. He knew they could calm his son down and get him to the psych ward without a risk of someone ending up dead. He knew, from years on the job, that the odds of his son being unharmed by police in this situation was slim. And they are white.

7 Likes

Well, it was multiple officers, and there are a number of handguns which meet the Chicago Police Department’s requirements for sidearms:

  • Be manufactured by Beretta, Sig, Glock, Ruger, Smith & Wesson, or Springfield Armory.
  • Be chambered in 9mm, .40 S&W, or .45 ACP.
  • Be double-action only, Hammer or Striker-Fired.

That’s it. Almost all of Beretta’s product line, as well as significant offerings from Sig-Sauer, Glock, Ruger, and S&W all use 15-round magazines. So even if this was only one of the officers who fired… no, he didn’t empty his weapon. More likely, this is two officers firing 4-5 shots each in rapid succession. The fact that at least one round went through a door and a wall before lodging in a second wall is a result of the shift in the 1980s away from the old .38 caliber revolvers that police in most places used, prior to the widespread adoption of the 9mm Beretta or Glock as the most common law enforcement sidearms. The change in caliber was cited for ‘increased stopping power’, but what it really resulted in was increased penetration in dense population centers, and more risk to bystanders.

Now, of course, 9mm is considered ‘normal’, regardless of the increased danger it presents. The action-movie mentality that’s become pervasive in the US has a lot of officers believing in their ability to shoot-to-wound, rather than regarding the mere drawing of their sidearm as tantamount to a fatal shooting - which is how my uncle, retired after 20 years on the job, was taught to approach his sidearm: drawing it is an admission of failure, and means you have accepted that you are likely going to need to kill a man. If you do not intend to kill someone, do not draw your weapon.

That this caution has fallen by the wayside is especially unforgivable today, with the range of non-lethal options available to police, including (even if they’re also overused terribly) tasers. The reliance of police officers on brandishing weapons for situations that, half a century ago, would never have required the levels of force we see commonly employed now, is more than just disturbing and disgusting, it’s downright terrifying.

3 Likes

CPD is trying to get out in front of this one. We learned a bitter lesson when Anita Alvarez charged Dante Servin- if you point and fire a gun in Illinois, it is an intentional act. People in Chicago are tired of CPD killing people for no reason. Protests have been pretty peaceful.

There hasn’t been much national coverage of the protests in Chicago, but parts of the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Avenue north of the river- high-end shopping district), were shut down on Black Friday and Christmas Eve. Some stores shut down because protesters blocked access. People are protesting and demanding Rahm resign over his handling of CPD. It’s not just the McDonald shooting, but other cases where the police haven’t been held accountable, and CPD’s policy of disappearing people to Homan Square, and other nastiness here.

2 Likes

Even as a non-cop I was taught by my dad (WW2 veteran) that if you picked up a gun and pointed it you had better be intending to use it no matter the target. It’s my experience that a .38 bullet has plenty on penetrating power, just not as much as a 9mm. Both will go thru unintended things. What I see is police with a much greater compulsion (not really the right word)…no… ease at unholstering and shooting. We’ve certainly seen this in Chicago recently.

4 Likes

In the same way that Claudine Longet accidentally shot Spider Sabich.

“resulting in the discharging of the officer’s weapon”

Jesus H Christ, it’s like the cops are pretending their guns went off all by themselves. (And yeah, I know this is now standard police bureaucratese. It’s bullshit.)

2 Likes

Whelp! If it’s one thing the Chicago PD is good at folks, it’s murdering the citizens they’re supposed to be protecting and serving.

Were they “serving” or “protecting” during this call?