CHICAGO — A South Side priest said a man accused of killing a Good Samaritan who tried to break up a fight confessed to him that he "didn't even realize he was doing it at the time."
The Rev. Michael Pfleger, senior pastor at St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham, said that Demetrius Jackson — who worked as a "community watcher" in a public school system safety program — approached him Nov. 21, after Jackson allegedly stabbed William Terry to death in the 10300 block of South Forest Avenue.
"He said to me . . . that he was in a rage, [and] he was angry, and all he did was grab the knife," Pfleger said Monday.
Jackson, 32, allegedly stabbed Terry, 56, a neighbor, several times after he tried to intervene in a fight between Jackson and his wife in their Roseland home, prosecutors said.
Jackson — whose public defender said he worked in the Chicago Public Schools' Safe Passage program, an initiative that helps kids stay safe on their way to and from school — faces murder charges and was ordered held with out bond during a court hearing Sunday.
"All Community Watchers must pass a background check before being allowed to be on post," a spokeswoman from Safe Passage said in an emailed statement. The stabbing was not "representative of the hard-working and dedicated community watchers that serve our children," she added.
CPS hires vendors who are charged with recruiting community watchers, the spokeswoman said, and the workers are not employed by CPS directly.
After the slaying, Pfleger said, Jackson came to him and and told him he had stabbed someone, saying that he wasn't aware of his actions at the time.
Pfleger offered to help Jackson confess to police, Pfleger said, and promised he would talk to an officer Jackson could trust to tell his story.
Pfleger then said he helped Jackson call an officer who is a member of his church, before Jackson came in to confess.
Jackson "didn't even realize he was doing it at the time," Pfleger said.
