Rare Trial Begins For Chicago Police Officer In Fatal Shooting Of Rekia Boyd

(Reuters) – A Chicago military officer goes on hearing on Thursday on transgression charges in a 2012 lethal sharpened of a 22-year-old black lady in a box that has drawn courtesy as a republic debates military use of lethal force, generally opposite immature black people.

Dante Servin, who is Hispanic, is a initial Chicago military officer in some-more than 15 years to be charged in a lethal shooting. He is charged with contingent murdering and other felonies in a off-duty sharpened of Rekia Boyd.

Servin called a 911 puncture series late on Mar 20, 2012 to news a shrill celebration in a park nearby his home, prosecutors say. After midnight, on Mar 21, he left his home to get food, armed with an unregistered semiautomatic handgun, a complaint said.

He afterwards got into an evidence with a organisation of immature people in an alley and shot during them from his car, wounding Boyd, who died a subsequent day, according to prosecutors.

Servin’s attorney, Darren O’Brien, declined to comment. According to pretrial filings, a invulnerability will disagree that Servin believed one of Boyd’s friends had a weapon.

Servin faces adult to 5 years in jail if convicted. He is on table avocation tentative a outcome of a trial.

The final Chicago military officer convicted in a killing, Gregory Becker in 1997, shot a homeless male in an off-duty incident. He served scarcely 4 years in prison.

The hearing follows a $4.5 million allotment that a city of Chicago paid to solve a polite lawsuit filed by Boyd’s family.

Boyd’s name has been one of many called out during protests around a nation given a white military officer fatally shot an unarmed black teen during a fight in Ferguson, Missouri, sparking a inhabitant discuss about policing. The on-duty sharpened in Ferguson was ruled justified.

In Chicago, a city of about 2.7 million, military have killed an normal of 17 people a year over a final 7 years, roughly each box ruled justified.

About 80 percent of people shot by Chicago military are black. The city’s race is about 30 percent African-American, though 73 percent of suspects identified in box reports are black.

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/09/rekia-boyd-officer-trial_n_7032474.html?utm_hp_ref=chicago&ir=Chicago