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Mother of Roshad McIntosh Leads Protest Over Son's Killing by Police

By Ted Cox | September 17, 2014 3:19pm | Updated on September 17, 2014 5:33pm
 Cynthia Lane demonstrates how she believes her son, Roshad McIntosh, was acting when shot by Chicago Police.
Cynthia Lane demonstrates how she believes her son, Roshad McIntosh, was acting when shot by Chicago Police.
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DNAinfo/Ted Cox

CITY HALL — The mother of a teenager shot and killed by police on the West Side a month ago led a City Hall protest Wednesday calling for the name of the officer who did the shooting.

"I want answers. That's why I'm here today," said Cynthia Lane, mother of Roshad McIntosh, a 19-year-old shot and killed by Chicago Police last month. "I want answers, and I'm not gonna stop until someone tells me something. I think I deserve that much." Lane said she had received no report on or accounting for the shooting from any city department or agency.

"I have not received anything since his death, and I don't think that's right," Lane added. "Why was he shot to death like he was? I want answers."

 North Lawndale activist Leonard Alexander blames the shooting in part on Harrison Police District Cmdr. Glenn Evans.
North Lawndale activist Leonard Alexander blames the shooting in part on Harrison Police District Cmdr. Glenn Evans.
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DNAinfo/Ted Cox

Calling the death of Roshad McIntosh a "murder," protesters insisted the 19-year-old was not armed when shot by Chicago Police the evening of Aug. 24 at the intersection of Polk Street and California Avenue in Lawndale.

Lane said he had his hands up and was trying to surrender.

Dozens of protesters chanted, "Justice for Roshad," "No peace, no justice" and "Name the killer cop," until Ken Bennett, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's deputy chief of staff, emerged from the mayor's office.

Away from protesters, Bennett met with Lane for more than 20 minutes.

"He assured me that I will get a report on it," Lane said afterward, following a "proper investigation."

At the time of the shooting, police said McIntosh, of the 1000 block of N. Central Avenue, was part of a group being questioned by police at the intersection when he attempted to flee. Police said he pulled a gun and was shot and that the gun was recovered at the scene.

Yet Lane soon led protests calling into question whether he was armed at all and insisting that he was kneeling on the ground with his hands in the air when shot. Protesters compared the shooting to the August killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., which set off weeks of violent protests in the St. Louis suburb.

According to Lane, witnesses to the shooting told her, "My son was in a surrender posture with his hands up begging for his life," when he was shot three times in the chest.

Leonard Alexander, a North Lawndale community activist, blamed a "tradition" of "police brutality" and Cmdr. Glenn Evans, who headed the Harrison Police District at the time of the shooting, only days before he was charged for an incident in which he allegedly threatened to kill a suspect and put his gun in the man's mouth and removed from active duty. Alexander said Evans had been out to "wreak havoc on our communities."

"He set the tone," said protester Paul McKinley.

"My message to the mayor is, 'We need you to clean house,'" Alexander added. "The blood of our children is on his hands."

Police Supt. Garry McCarthy countered at the time of the shooting that a gun had been recovered following the incident.

"Over the past three years CPD has led a return to community policing to build relationships between officers and residents, and we have instituted new training, mandatory for all officers, focused on how they are to interact with residents," said police spokesman Martin Maloney. "All officer-involved shootings are reviewed by the Independent Police Review Authority, and as a result we cannot comment on the incident at this time."

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