Jury awards $1.5 million to family
Cop found guilty in death of Black youth
By Bill Massey
Chicago
A civil court jury on Aug. 7 found the City of
Chicago and recently retired Chicago police officer Kenny
Lunsford guilty of the wrongful death of Michael Russell. In
1998 Lunsford had fatally shot the 20-year-old Black man in the
back. All witnes ses, including some of Lunsford's fellow cops,
testified that Russell was not armed. The jury awarded his
family $1.5 million.
Russell's mother, Mildred Hamilton, and her three children
felt compelled to bring a civil suit after city officials
refused to take any action and instead covered up for the
killer. The killing was so blatant and outrageous that the
Office of Pro fessional Standards (OPS), an in-house police
body that generally whitewashes police violence, determined
that Lunsford lied about the shooting. However, police brass,
led by OPS Chief Callie Baird, overruled their own
investigating body and said the slaying of this unarmed man was
justified.
Both Mayor Richard Daley and States Attorney Dick Devine,
who have allowed police over the years to brutally torture
prisoners in order to wring false confessions out of them in
capital cases, supported this travesty of justice.
Lunsford and his lawyers argued both that Michael Russell
had just shot and wounded another man and that he had been the
lookout for the shooter. All evidence given contradicted both
these lies. Mario Morgan, who had suffered a leg wound in the
first shooting, testified that police had come to his hospital
bed and tried to get him to say that Russell had shot him. But
when they showed him Russell's picture and said, "Here is the
man who shot you," Morgan replied that Russell was not the
shooter. He later picked out a picture of a man named Craig
Winn as the person who shot him.
Morgan at the time was facing drug charges brought by
Officer Lunsford. Luns ford told Morgan that he would have the
charges reduced if he would name Russell as the shooter.
Morgan's lawyer, Steven Greenberg, put an end to this attempt
to induce perjury and witness tampering.
Craig Winn later confessed to shooting Mario Morgan, pleaded
guilty and served four years in state prison.
Winn, who like Morgan and Greenberg testified on behalf of
Russell's family in the civil suit, had told the police on the
very day of the shooting where he had thrown the gun he used to
shoot Morgan. The police either made no search for the weapon
or have kept it hidden. They tried to justify Lunsford's
killing of the unarmed Russell by claiming he had shot Morgan.
But no weapon was found on Russell or around his body when he
was dying from police bullets.
Regulators of drug trade
Lunsford has a reputation for viciousness in the Cabrini
Green housing complex. He is typical of the breed of uniformed
killers that are unleashed to do what they will against
residents of Black, Latino and other oppressed communities all
across this country. The police serve as regulators of the
billion-dollar drug trade as well as enforcers in a war against
the youth of these same communities.
At the trial Lunsford's lawyers tried to turn the victim
into the criminal by referring to the sad condition of the
neighborhood, as though Michael Russell were responsible for it
and not the landlords, bankers and their politicians. They
pointed out that Michael Russell was unemployed-- as if victims
of unemployment are guilty and not the society that denies jobs
and equality to workers, especially young Black workers. They
attacked the deceased as a member of a gang, even though
capitalist society has failed to provide decent conditions for
youth to develop and grow. The worst gangs of criminals that
roam the streets of the inner cities and get away with murder
are the police, backed by the corporations and their
politicians.
A little bit of justice was done in this case but it won't
bring Michael Russell back to his family. His killer is still
at large and walking the streets.
Lunsford is part of the occupation forces that prey on the
Black community in the same way that the Pentagon preys upon
the people of Iraq or U.S.-backed Israeli forces prey upon the
Palestinians. It is crucial that the movement against colonial
occupation abroad also fight against the occupation of the
oppressed communities here at home.
Reprinted from the Aug. 21, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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Email: ww@workers.org
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