*The mother of a man shot and killed by Chicago police last year was offered a settlement to halt her federal lawsuit against the city, but she has rejected the money and wants the city to release dashcam footage of the killing – because she says it shows her son was unarmed when he was killed.
Dorothy Holmes, the mother of Ronald “Ronnieman” Johnson, told reporters during a press conference Tuesday that she has declined the proposed money in her federal civil lawsuit over her son’s death. Holmes said she will not take hush money from a city that has been handing out millions to cover-up questionable police shootings, like the $5 million paid to Laquan McDonald’s family this past summer.
“You can’t put a price on my son’s life,” Holmes said with a shaken voice.
According to reports, her son was running through Washington Park on Oct. 12, 2014, on Chicago’s South Side when Officer George Hernandez shot him to death. Soon, the official police account was told to the press.
Johnson had a gun, Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden told the media. (Camden is the same spokesman who claimed McDonald “lunged” at police with a knife, prompting them to open fire.) Hernandez was not in uniform and driving an unmarked car when he responded to a call of shots fired. Johnson became an automatic suspect because he was running. Camden said Johnson was carrying a gun when at one point he turned toward Hernandez, causing the officer to shoot.
Holmes and her attorney said they’ve seen the dashcam video and it shows police are lying.
Johnson is shown sprinting through the park with nothing in his hands, they said.
“He’s running with palms up,” said William Calloway, an activist who speaks on behalf of Johnson’s family. “The video’s not blurry. It’s not grainy. It is clear as day.”
“They killed him and he was unarmed,” he told The Daily Beast.
Even worse, Holmes’s attorney alleges that police framed Johnson after they killed him by planting a gun on his person.
“Her prerogative the whole time has been to get this officer arrested and indicted,” Calloway said of Holmes.
On Dec. 10, a federal judge will decide whether the city must release the video.
Watch a news report of Dorothy Holmes’ press conference below:
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