*A Black security guard was shot and killed by a police officer while trying to stop a gunman and now the victim’s mother is suing the cop who killed her son.
Witnesses said 26-year-old Jemel Roberson had subdued a man who opened fire at the club located in the south suburbs of Chicago.
When police arrived, they found Roberson armed with a gun and on top of shooter as he tried to hold him down until authorities arrived, Fox32 reports.
But instead of helping, a Midlothian police officer fired at Roberson. He later died at a nearby hospital, according to CBS Chicago.
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URGENT: Here is what happens when a good (BLACK) guy with a gun tries to intervene in a mass shooting. #JemelRoberson
A beloved church musician in Chicago who moonlighted as a security guard was shot & killed by police after he stopped a mass shooting at an area bar. pic.twitter.com/uRPqEEFqKX
— Shaun King (@shaunking) November 12, 2018
“The security guard that got killed, he caught somebody and had his knee on him the whole time,” witness Adam Harris said. “Just waiting on the police to get there. I guess when the police got there, they probably thought he was one of the bad guys, cause he had his gun on the guy and they shot him.”
Harris told WGN-TV that “everybody” tried to warn the responding officers that Roberson was a security guard who was trying to subdue a suspect.
“Everybody was screaming out ‘security, he was a security guard,” Harris told the outlet, “and they still did their job and saw a black man with a gun and basically killed him.”
Patricia Hill, pastor of Purposed Hill in Chicago told WGN-TV that Roberson dreamed of being a police officer.
“The very people that he wanted to be family with took his life,” she said.
The Midlothian Police Department told The Chicago Sun-Times in a statement that Illinois State Police are investigating the shooting.
“It is the policy of the Midlothian Police Department to utilize the Illinois State Police Public Integrity Task Force for any officer-involved shootings so we can ensure transparency and maintain public trust,” Midlothian police said, according to the newspaper.
In the meantime, Jemel’s mother, Beatrice Roberson, is suing the officer as well as the Village of Midlothian, and she’s demanding damages in excess of $1 million.
In the suit, she says the shooting was unprovoked, unjustified and “excessive and unreasonable.”
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