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NEWS & LETTERS,
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2003
Killer cop trial
Chicago--The civil trial of white police officer Kenny
Lunsford, along with the City of Chicago, for the killing of Michael Russell is
a major event. Lunsford killed Russell, a 20-year-old Black man, on April 20,
1998 outside the Cabrini-Green housing projects. Russell was caught up in a
situation where one man, Craig Winn, had shot another man, Marrio Morgan, and
then Winn was in turn shot by police. Russell was shot a number of times in the back when he
tried to take cover. He was unarmed and uninvolved. Craig Winn and Marrio Morgan
have testified to that effect, denying Lunsford’s lawyers’ attempts to smear
him. Morgan also testified that Lunsford tried to coerce him in 1998 to
implicate Russell in his shooting by pressuring him on a drug case in which
Lunsford was the arresting officer. Morgan’s lawyer at the time corroborates
this. A police internal affairs investigation found Lunsford
guilty of lying about the shooting, but no action was taken and the ruling was
overturned by the Office of Professional Standards. Callie Baird, the former
head of OPS, was recently rewarded for such services by being appointed to head
the Cook County Jail. Michael Russell was one of three young Black men murdered
by police at Cabrini-Green in 1998, along with Brennan King and Leroy Reed.
Across Chicago, 71 people were shot by police that year and 15 of them died. It
would be good to see a little belated justice done in one of these cases. It is
also important to remember justice undone. --Gerard Emmett |
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