Chicago is on edge again after yet another police shooting resulted in an unarmed and completely accidental killing of an innocent person.
Bettie Jones, 55, was killed Saturday when police were called in to a two-story apartment in Chicago’s West Side. Antonio LeGrier had called the police when his son Quintonio, 19, became violent and was banging on his door with a baseball bat in hand. Cops, unable to handle what they described as a “combative subject,” opened fire on the second-floor apartment killing Legrier, but bullets from the gunfire exchange also killed Jones who was in the apartment below.
While the officer who shot Jones and LeGrier, both African American, has been placed on administrative duty and the Chicago Police Department and Mayor Rahm Emanuel have expressed their sympathy for this horrific accidental death, family members of both victims are demanding an overhaul of police training.
(The city of Chicago has been mired by police protests, many of which have shut down popular streets during the holiday season. Protestors simply want shootings lik that of Jones or Laquan Mcdonald to stop.)
“Why you’ve got to shoot first and ask questions later?” asked Jacqueline Walker, friend to the deceased Jones.
Relatives who have been stationed outside the house since the shooting began are asking for police to change the way they work with black residents, and undergo better training for dealing with mentally unstable subjects. In addition they want officers like the one involved in Saturday’s incident to be subject to harsher punishment for what they deem excessive force.
“You call for help, and the police are supposed to serve us and protect us, and yet they take the lives,” said Janet Cooksey, mother of Quintonio LeGrier. “What’s wrong with that picture? It’s a badge to kill?”