Police kill man, crowd confronts officers
CHICAGO: A Chicago police officer fatally shot a man on Saturday evening on the city’s South Side, angering nearby residents who gathered at the scene in large numbers and confronted officers for several hours.
The shooting was the latest in recent years to expose deep-seated mistrust between the Chicago police and residents of predominantly black neighbourhoods on the south and west sides.
Fred Waller, the chief of patrol for the Chicago police, said Saturday’s encounter started when officers noticed a man with a bulge on his waistline that they believed could be a gun. He said that a confrontation broke out after officers approached the man and that an officer fired fatal shots.
“When they approached him, he tried to push their hands away,” Mr Waller said. “He started flailing and swinging away, trying to make an escape. And as he made an escape, he reached for the gun.”
Mr Waller said the police recovered a semi-automatic weapon from the man, whom he did not believe was licensed to carry a concealed gun. The man has not been identified.
Activists, residents and local journalists quickly converged at the scene, a busy area near a commuter rail station and shopping district. Many people recorded tense confrontations between residents and officers. Some were heard disputing the Police Department’s version of events.
The local Fox television station posted video of a man jumping on the hood of a police cruiser. A Chicago Sun-Times reporter wrote on Twitter that a scuffle broke out, with officers using batons and residents throwing punches. Officers stormed a parking lot where protesters had gathered, that reporter said, making several arrests and throwing the reporter to the ground.
Questions of police use of force and accountability for officers have dominated public discourse here for years. After an officer in 2015 was charged with murder in the death of Laquan McDonald, a black teenager, Mayor Rahm Emanuel promised sweeping policy changes and a cultural overhaul of the Police Department.
Officers now wear body cameras and carry stun guns, but police shootings that outrage Chicagoans have persisted.
In 2015, an officer fatally shot a teenager wielding a baseball bat as well as an innocent bystander. In 2016, an officer fatally shot an unarmed teenager in the back after he ran from the police. And last month, about 5 miles from the scene of Saturday’s shooting, distraught residents confronted the police after officers fatally shot an armed man in the back.