*Here we go again .
In Chicago, a judge’s surprise acquittal of an off-duty police officer, Dante Servin (pictured), Â in the shooting death of an unarmed woman, Rekia Boyd (pictured), called into question prosecutors’ decision not to charge the officer with murder, and set off protests outside the courthouse and near the site of the killing.
Here’s what theAP is reporting via MSN News:
(The fact) that the officer shot Boyd, 22, was never in dispute. But the judge said he was bound to find detective Servin not guilty of involuntary manslaughter — because manslaughter requires evidence of “recklessness,” while the judge described the act of shooting as “intentional.”
“It is intentional and the crime, if any there be, is first-degree murder,” Judge Dennis Porter said in his seven-page ruling.
Carrying signs saying “Black Lives Matter” and “Avenge Rekia,” dozens of people rallied Monday night at a park on the city’s West Side to protest the verdict hours earlier. Tying the slaying to other, more recent police shootings like the one last year in Ferguson, Missouri, protesters called on Chicago to “stand up.”
“We’ve got to make it clear that we don’t even care what the legal system said. The streets say, ‘Guilty,'” said protester Jedidiah Brown. “The streets will not rest with this verdict the way it is.”
Boyd was walking to a store with three friends in March 2012 when Servin, upset over noise, asked them to quiet down. Servin says he fired because he believed another person in the group was moving toward him with a gun, though police found only a cellphone.
Get MORE of this AP story at MSN News.
Watch this report from WLS/Eyewitness News:
We Publish News 24/7. Don’t Miss A Story. Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to Our Newsletter Now!
