Black Man Dies In Mount Greenwood Police Shooting
A police-involved shooting in Mount Greenwood, Chicago leaves a Black man dead.
An Indianapolis Black man, Joshua Beal, was shot and killed by a police officer in Mount Greenwood, following an altercation at a road rage incident involving a family who had just left a cemetery after burying a loved one. What prompted the police to shoot Beal? Find out in the carefully collected details from top sources below.
The Grio
Saturday afternoon, a 25-year-old Indianapolis Black man was shot and killed by an off-duty officer while in Chicago for his cousin’s funeral. The shooting happened in the Mount Greenwood neighborhood.
According to police, the officer was fired upon before he fired back, though the victim’s family disputes this claim.
The victim has been identified as Joshua Beal, he has two children. He was in critical condition when he was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center where he succumbed to his injuries.
“25-year-old black man shot and killed by off-duty officer” #africanamerican info #feedly https://t.co/apHALEKvcu
— Asad Bain (@bain_asad) November 6, 2016
The incident began when a vehicle leaving funeral services stopped in traffic in front of a fire house. An off-duty firefighter let them know they are illegally blocking the lane at which point multiple people exited the vehicle.
It was then that a verbal and physical altercation ensued. The officer who fired the fatal shot was at a nearby business and came to assist the firefighter.
A Chicago police sergeant was on his way to work as he drove by and witnessed a man with a gun. When this man “failed to drop his weapon, shots were fired striking the individual multiple times,” according to police. It was the sergeant that fired the fatal shots.
“Chicago police gunned my baby down like a vicious animal,” said Tiffaney Boxley, Joshua Beal’s mother. “They shot him twice in the back and three times in his front.” See more
Chicago Sun Times
Becky Schlikerman, a spokeswoman with the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, confirmed a death in the Far South Side neighborhood.But she said she could not release the Black man’s name until relatives were notified. An autopsy was expected to be done Sunday.
Beal’s sister Cordney Boxley said she and other family members were in a funeral procession when an off-duty police officer, in an unmarked car, tried to run her 17-year-old sister, who was driving Beal’s car, off the road. Some of the mourners pulled him over to ask what he was doing. He responded by pushing another female relative to the ground and pointing a gun to her face, Boxley said.
Man dead in police-involved shooting in Mount Greenwood officially identified by ME’s as 25-year-old Joshua Beal. https://t.co/c9ATGTeRtX
— Sun-Times Breaking (@CSTbreaking) November 6, 2016
The man never identified himself as an officer either before the shooting or after when he attempted to flee the scene, Boxley said. Boxley and other witnesses made no mention of a dispute with an off-duty firefighter.
Johnson declined to answer questions after the shooting but said it was being investigated by the Independent Police Review Authority. See more
Fox 32
According to the police, the incident began about 3 p.m. when the off-duty Chicago firefighter argued with motorists who were in a funeral procession and blocking a fire lane.
The altercation became “verbal and physical,” police said.
An off-duty police officer was in a barbershop and saw the fight. He went into the street and identified himself as a cop, said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
A sergeant driving to work at the nearby Morgan Park police station stopped and got out of his vehicle. The sergeant also announced he was a cop, Guglielmi said. In an earlier news release, the department said the sergeant observed “a male with a firearm in his hand.” Both the off-duty officer and the sergeant pulled their weapons and fired at a man holding a gun when he failed to drop the weapon, Guglielmi said.
Off duty cop kills a Black man .@PettyIdol on #Periscope: #ChicaGO #JOSHUABEAL Protest https://t.co/h9op1pJMB8
— KS (@ItsMeKimle) November 6, 2016
It’s unclear whether one or both of them hit the man, he said. “Police suspect the offender’s weapon was fired or misfired during the exchange and we are testing it,” Guglielmi said.
He said the off-duty officer was injured in the melee and was sent to a hospital for treatment. The sergeant was not seriously injured, he said.
“The officer(s) involved will be placed on routine administrative duties for a period of 30 days,” police said in a statement.
Late Saturday night, about 30 Black Lives Matter activists and residents of the mostly white Mount Greenwood neighborhood squared off at each other at 111th and Kedzie, not far from the fatal shooting. See more
Here is another victim of a trigger happy cop. The officer involved just had to pull the trigger on the Black man without any tangible reason. The issue of police violence on Blacks is getting out of hand and it has to stop.
