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Chicago Police Kill 2 African Americans, Reigniting Calls for Mayor to Resign

HeadlineDec 28, 2015

A police shooting in Chicago has killed two unarmed African Americans, sparking new calls for change at a police department already under heavy scrutiny. Early Saturday morning, the father of a 19-year-old college student, Quintonio LeGrier, called police to report his son was behaving oddly and carrying a metal bat. The father also called the downstairs tenant, 55-year-old Bettie Jones, to alert her that police would need to enter through her door. When police arrived, Quintonio LeGrier allegedly confronted them in the foyer. Both LeGrier and Bettie Jones were killed when police opened fire. On Sunday, LeGrier’s mother, Janet Cooksey, spoke as family and friends gathered outside the home.

Janet Cooksey: “No mother should have to bury her child, and especially under these circumstances. You call for help, the police are supposed to serve us and protect us, and yet they take the lives. What’s wrong with that picture? It’s a badge to kill? I mean, where do we get our help?”

The other victim, Bettie Jones, was the mother of five grown children, with whom she had celebrated Christmas just hours before. Police have acknowledged they shot her by accident. The killings have renewed calls for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to resign. Evelyn Glover, the cousin of Bettie Jones, spoke out with a message for the mayor.

Evelyn Glover Jennings: “You meet me at City Hall. I want my cousin’s death avenged. You killed her in cold blood. Emanuel, Emanuel, call your boys. Chicago police belong to you. Now you vigilante, you’ve been sending the Chicago police out to kill, to do nothing but kill. Get 'serve and protect' off of them cars and write, 'We kill,' 'cause that's your mission, you lying demon.”

Mayor Emanuel was already under pressure to resign over the more than year-old police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald and a potential police cover-up. McDonald, who was African-American, was shot 16 times by white police officer Jason Van Dyke. Dash cam video, only recently released by court order, clearly contradicts police claims about the shooting. We’ll go to Chicago for more on this story later in the broadcast.

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