Tensions high in area where Chicago officer killed black man

According to a statement from police, a vehicle leaving funeral services was stopped directly in front of a firehouse around 3 p.m. Saturday. According to the news site DNAinfo, pro-police protesters in the area threatened Beal’s family and local activists with violence for speaking out against CPD.

The police and Beal’s family have provided conflicting accounts of the incident, which sparked a contentious protest between Black Lives Matter and pro-police demonstrators over the weekend. Beal allegedly pulled out his gun and didn’t drop it when the sergeant asked him to do so. It was the sergeant that fired the fatal shots. The man was Beal, Chicago police said.

The paper reports that the Independent Police Review Authority is looking into the shooting.

On October 27 Joshua Beal’s cousin Marcus Washington was murdered in the 3200 block of Winthrop Avenue on Indianapolis’ north side in what family members claim was a killing over money and somebody else’s girlfriend.

Shortly after, an off-duty Chicago police officer nearby saw the altercation unfolding, approached the scene and became involved in the argument, Guglielmi said. “A person who is supposed to uphold and serve the community and even though that officer took my cousin life, when the police all came, all they came was to protect that officer and to get they story straight”.

A police sergeant driving to work saw the altercation and reportedly saw a man with a gun and stopped to assist.

Police said the incident began to escalate and multiple shots were fired at the man.

Boxley said numerous men in the family began walking toward the man, confronting him. Washington, who had previously lived in Chicago, was fatally shot in Indianapolis on October 27. They say Beal did have a gun, but has a hide and carry permit, and that he did not point the gun at officers. “Chicago police gunned my baby down like [he was] a vicious animal”, she said.

Boxley described her son as a devoted father. He was only here for a funeral.

“Today we’re here to stand up against Mt. Greenwood and stand up for our black brother Joshua Beal who was killed yesterday they lynched this man right here in Mt. Greenwood”, said activist Ja’Mal Green.

“He didn’t want a gun fight”.

Beal did not draw his weapon until after the officers apparently identified themselves and at least one officer had holstered his weapon and was attempting to de-escalate the situation.

A police spokesman says one of the officers involved in the incident was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries. Beal drove after the auto and told the driver, Porfiro Mendosa, to pay him at least $660 for the damage, court records show.

She said the officer went to the passenger’s side where Beal was sitting, opened the door, pulled him out of the vehicle and continued to empty his clip on him.

There is a cell phone video taken by a woman driving by the scene that captured the sounds of the gunshots.

“They shot him”, a voice is heard saying. She said her family as well as the motorist who had cut her off-who she believed was a Chicago police officer-stopped and got out of their cars.

The camera pans left, to the off-duty officer with the red shirt and now-holstered gun, then back to Beal. “It is our hope that people will wait until all evidence is in before making any conclusions about what happened yesterday evening”, Sissac said.