Chicago: As Police Kill Youth, Vast Misconduct Allegations Purged
EXCLUSIVE: As Police Kill Youth, Vast Misconduct Allegations Purged
Thursday, 02 April 2015 00:00
By Sarah Macaraeg,
Truthout | Report
This is the first piece of a four-part investigative series on the Chicago Police Department and the Independent Police Review Authority.
On July 4, 2014, as the final explosions of Chicago's lakefront fireworks extravaganza trailed into the water and began fading in the night sky, 14-year-old Pedro Rios Jr. crossed Cicero Avenue in front of an approaching police car, on the northwest side of town.
A brown-skinned boy just over 110 pounds, sporting a low fade haircut and the faint beginnings of a mustache, Rios walked in blue-and-white sneakers, shorts and a blue T-shirt - which soon bore the marks of two gunshots, fired into his back by a police officer.
The young Chicagoan technically saw the end of his eighth grade year; school had ended for the summer two and a half weeks prior. But given a spell of missed days and poor grades, Rios did not graduate from the neighborhood elementary school he attended with two younger brothers.
Pronounced dead on the scene of his encounter with police, he never will. ...............(more)
http://truth-out.org/news/item/29989-non-fatal-how-a-boy-s-deadly-shooting-by-chicago-police-uncovers-accountability-mechanisms-designed-to-fail