Witness: Wilson killing was murder not a traffic stop

The real cause of a 34-year-old West Side man's shooting death has the Chicago Police Department and parts of the Black community at odds again.

A man in a light-colored Cadillac was stopped by police about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday in the 199 block of North Lorel Avenue for a traffic violation, according to liana Rosenzweig, chief administrator for the Independent Police Review Authority, formerly known as the Office of Professional Standards.

Three of the four officers on the scene fired multiple shots, killing a man standing at the driver's side door of the Cadillac, Rosenzweig said. There were two officers each in two squad cars.

Freddie L. Wilson, of the 1600 block of South Homan Ayenue, was pronounced dead at the scene at 11:30 p.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. The medical examiner would not confirm how many shots hit Wilson, nor what part of the body was hit, but autopsy results stated he died of "multiple gunshot wounds - homicide."

Rosenzweig said police recovered a gun on the ground near the car, but was not certain if Wilson aimed it at the officers or if the gun had been fired. She said none of the officers were injured and that Wilson was alone in the car.

The reason for the alleged traffic stop and why the three officers fired their weapons is under investigation. That investigation may take up to six months and no comment will be made by IPRA until the investigation is complete, Rosenzweig said.

The IPRA was on the scene to act as the spokesman, ensure that evidence was not compromised or tainted, and to immediately interview the officers and witnesses. That is the new procedure for every policeinvolved shooting.

The fatal shooting comes less than a week after Rosenzweig announced that her office will take over the role as spokesman for police-involved shootings. The police will remain spokesman for incidents where a cop has been shot

Residents dispute the police's version of the incident and said the evidence was tampered with before the IPRA got to the scene.

"There was no traffic stop because the car was parked in the same spot for at least an hour prior to'the shooting," prace Hazzard told the Defender while standing in the same spot Wilson laid dead hours before.

Hazzard and other witnesses said the father of two was a local music artist and often sold his CDs inside of Mac Arthur's Restaurant a few blocks away.

"That's where he was before they killed him. He came around the corner and was walking to his car to get into it on the driver's side when the officers came from the other side of the street and started shooting. I heard about nine shots," Hazzard said. "After he fell to the ground, they handcuffed him. Why did they handcuff him? He was already dead and they knew it."

Hazzard asked again, "Why would the police say it was a traffic stop when the man wasn't driving yet?"

Another resident who prefers to remain anonymous told the same story.

"I saw it go down and it terrified me. He wasn't doing anything wrong and he didn't have a weapon. The police just rushed upon him and murdered him," the resident said.

Clergy leaders from the Leaders Network on the West Side held a news conference yesterday at the crime scene and said that by the way the IPRA is handling this incident, they are not convinced that there will be a completely independent investigation.

"The statement that it was a traffic violation is already in dispute by credible witnesses. So is the claim that the witnesses did not see the man with a gun at all during the incident," said Rev. Marshall Hatch of New Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church and the Leaders Network.,

The sole reason why Hatch and Rev. Ira Aeree said the investigation was "immediately botched" is because there is no community representative present during the 'roundtable'

A roundtable is called within hours of a shooting and the officers involved are questioned by a panel of police officials, prosecutors and OPS.

"If there is a community person present to sit in on the discussion, we can have confidence in the front-end of the process. We need to have some degree of trust," Aeree said.

The network plans to have another meeting with Rosenzweig next week about the IPRA's process.

[Author Affiliation]

by Kathy Chaney

Defender Staff Writer