Police
Family Demands Answers After Unarmed Illinois Man Is Killed By Police, Girlfriend Injured
Police in Waukegan, Illinois, shot and killed an unarmed teenage Black man and critically injured his girlfriend on the night of Oct. 20.
Police in Waukegan, Illinois, shot and killed Marcellis Stinnette, an unarmed teenage Black man ,and critically injured his girlfriend on the night of Oct. 20, ABC 7 reports.
Marcellis Stinnette and his girlfriend police encounter
The family of 19-year-old Marcellis Stinnette said he was sitting in a car with his girlfriend and mother of his child, Tafarra Williams, when police shot and killed him. Stinnette’s family said he died at the scene, while police said he died at the hospital.
Williams’ family alleges that police shot her in the stomach and hand, for which she remains hospitalized.
“When I got there, she said, ‘Mama, they just shot us for nothing,'” Williams’ mother, Clifftina Johnson, told ABC 7.
“My daughter said she put her hand up, and if she didn’t put her hand up, she said, ‘Mama, I would be dead.'”
Report of a suspicious vehicle
Police said the incident began when they received a report of a suspicious vehicle, however the families of both victims said they were just sitting in their car outside Williams’ mother’s home. The police said when an officer approached the car to investigate, Stinnette and Williams fled the scene.
Tafarra Williams and Marcellis Stinnette allegedly fled on foot
Another officer reportedly spotted the car nearby moments later, and when he approached the couple on foot, the car reversed. The officer fired his pistol “in fear for his safety,” according to a statement from the Waukegan Police Department given to ABC 7.
“The police officer got out of the car. When he told them to stop, he told her to stop, she was scared,” Mosier told ABC 7. “She put up hands, she started yelling, ‘Why you got a gun?’ She started screaming. He just started shooting.”
Police said they found no weapons in the couple’s car.
The families are demanding answers
At a press conference Wednesday, the Stinnette and Williams’ families said they are demanding more answers and justice in the case.
“We’re looking for peace and justice. That’s all we want,” Francellise Stinnette-Watts, Marcellis’ great-aunt, said. “We want to know what happened. We would like to see the video camera.”
“They were not thugs and were not problematic kids,” family spokesman Ricky Carly said. “They didn’t have any issues with anybody out here.”
The Stinnette family is trying to make peace with Marcellis’ death.
“And the police officer, he’s forgiven,” said Sherrellis Sheria Stinnette, mother of Marcellis. “I have to forgive him. That’s what God wants me to do.”
“We would like justice, but we also would like police reform, said Zhanellis Banks, sister of Marcellis.
Officers involved in the shooting
The officer who fatally shot Stinnette and injured Williams has been fired, authorities announced late Friday.
An officer who shot the couple is Hispanic and had been with the Waukegan Police Department for five years. The officer who conducted the original traffic stop is white, police said.
Through departmental policy, the Illinois State Police will conduct an investigation. Waukegan Police submitted body camera and squad car video to the Illinois State Police, authorities said.
Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham encouraged anyone with additional information or surveillance video to bring forth evidence for investigators to make the best decision.
Police
Family of Black girls handcuffed by Colorado police, held at gunpoint reach $1.9 million settlement
The family of four Black girls who were wrongfully detained and held at gunpoint by Aurora, CO police have reached a settlement with the city.
Family of Black girls held at gunpoint reach settlement
Finalized on Monday, the families will collectively receive $1.9 million.
The settlement marks the latest payout the City of Aurora has been forced to make over officers’ excessive use of force.
In 2021, the city paid a $15 million settlement to Elijah McClain’s family, a 23-year-old Black man who died in 2019 after officers put him in a chokehold and paramedics injected him with ketamine.
The incident
In August 2020, four Black girls, ages 6, 12, 14 and 17, were held face down on the ground and put in handcuffs in a nail salon parking lot, crying and screaming, as officers towered over them.
Brittney Gilliam, the mother of the 6-year-old, was driving that Sunday morning with her relatives, because they were going to get their nails done together.
Wrongfully detained
But before they made it in the salon, Gilliam was detained after officers mistakenly thought she was driving a stolen S.U.V.
Police had mistakenly believed Gilliam was driving a stolen car.
And a simple second step police failed to take, resulted in the family being wrongfully detained.
Officers didn’t type in the plate number in a second database to show them the make of the vehicle. If they had, authorities said, the officers would have realized that the plate number was registered to a motorcycle in Montana.
Black girls and mother held at gunpoint traumatized
Dozens of bystanders watched the ordeal unfold, and video footage of the incident went viral, sparking protests over racial injustice, citing excessive force on Black Americans.
After the video went viral, Aurora police had apologized for their grave mistake, but the emotional trauma had already happened.
The Aurora Police Department said its officers are trained to draw their weapons before telling passengers to exit the vehicle and ordering them to lie on the ground, The Post reported.
Officers who held Black girls at gunpoint
One of the two officers who drew their guns and handcuffed members of the family was initially suspended.
However, he and the other officer that pulled his firearm remain on the police force, the New York Times reports.
To date, no officers were fired or charged in connection with the incident.
Police
2023 saw a record year of killings by police in U.S.
The number of people killed by police in the United States reached a new high in 2023, according to new research.
The number of people killed by police in the United States reached a new high in 2023, according to new research.
2023 police killings increased dramatically
Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group, dockets deaths at the hands of police officers. Last year, it recorded the highest number of killings since its national tracking began in 2013.
Statistics explained
The data reported that police officers killed 1,329 people in 2023, representing nearly a 19-percent increase over the 11-year span.
Nearly 90% of those killed were fatally shot, according to Abdul Nasser Rad, managing director of research and data at Campaign Zero, who runs Mapping Police Violence.
There were only 14 days without a police killing last year and on average, law enforcement officers killed someone every 6.6 hours, according to the report.
Meanwhile last year, the number of people killed by gunfire and officers killed in the line of duty declined, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. There was an increase in the number of police officers shot.
The newly released data suggests a grim reality and a systemic crisis, with an average of about three people killed by officers each day, with slight increases in recent years. In 2022, 1,250 were killed by police.
The data also reported that Black people were about 2.8 times more likely to be killed by officers than their white counterparts between 2013 and 2023.
Recording police misconduct
For decades, many Americans have suffered various forms of brutality and injustice at the hands of “bad” law enforcement officers.
When a civilian puts in a complaint against the officer only a small percent of complaints result in the officer being disciplined —partly because the accusations are hidden.
Half of the battle is knowing who the “bad” law enforcement are and proper action being taken.
Missin Peace, a national police misconduct database that collects formal civilian complaints against law enforcement, helps fill that void.
In 2022, we had a conversation with the creators, who urged those who filed a complaint against an officer, to upload it on their website as well.
While there is still much work to do, it’s a start.
Police
14-year-old boy with autism tased by police in what family says was case of mistaken identity
An Illinois family is demanding answers after their 14-year-old autistic son was tased by police in what they maintain was a case of mistaken identity.
An Illinois family is demanding answers after their 14-year-old autistic son was tased by police in what they maintain was a case of mistaken identity.
14-year-old autistic boy tased by police
In an interview with WLS Chicago, the family says that the teen, Avarius Thompson, suffered injuries, including a fractured hip, during an encounter with Dolton police on the morning of Nov.
Police’s incident report
According to the Dolton Police Department’s incident report, Dolton police were assisting police in the nearby neighborhood of Riverdale in the search for four Black males who had fled from a crashed, stolen vehicle, two of whom were allegedly carrying rifles and a handgun.
Dolton officers spotted two subjects, one of whom matched the description of a suspect sought in the incident, in a nearby backyard and pursued them, according to the incident report.
An officer pursuing Avarius ordered the teen to stop before tasing him, according to the incident report.
The incident was captured on the officer’s body-camera footage.
“Hands up! Hands up!” a Dolton police officer can be heard yelling in the body-camera footage as he runs toward Avarius with his Taser extended. After the teen jumps over a fence, the officer deploys the taser, the footage shows.
Avarius attempts to get up when the officer deploys his Taser again a few seconds later, the footage shows.
“Don’t move. Don’t move,” the officer says. “You move, you’re going to get some more.”
Avarius’ father, Eric Thompson, told WLS that the footage was “frightening.”
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