Ronald Johnson's Family Doesn't Believe A Word Of The Police's Official Story Of His Death
By aaroncynic in News on Dec 8, 2015 5:19PM
Michael Oppenheimer and Dorothy Holmes speak to reporters at a news conference surrounding her son's shooting death by Chicago Police. Photo by Aaron Cynic/Chicagoist
Calling Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez's Monday press conference on the shooting death of Ronald Johnson by a Chicago cop a “27-minute infomercial,” Michael Oppenheimer, Johnson's family's attorney, had harsh criticisms for Alvarez’s decision to forgo pressing criminal charges against the officer who shot Johnson.
Prosecutors told reporters Monday that the officer, George Hernandez, had reason to believe Johnson was carrying a gun and posed a threat to him and other officers in the area when he shot the 25-year-old black man as he fled from police in October 2014.
"You can see no gun," Oppenheimer said in a separate press conference. "There is no gun visible in Ronald Johnson's hand, because there was none."
Police have said they recovered a gun from Johnson at the scene of the shooting, but Oppenheimer has suggested that the gun could have been planted on Johnson by police after the fact.
Oppenheimer also criticized Alvarez for relying almost solely on an investigation by the Independent Police Review Authority, at a time when its investigation practices are being severely questioned and its head has been replaced:
“It is amazing to me that Anita Alvarez relied on investigation from IPRA and she had the nerve to say that today...that she relied on the investigation when 12 to 14 hours ago, the head of IPRA resigned because of the shoddy investigations IPRA does.”
Officials maintain that Johnson’s death was justified based on allegations that he had a gun at the time, and Hernandez felt threatened. "Based on an objective review, we determined the prosecution could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Hernandez's actions were not reasonable," said Assistant State's Attorney Lynn McCarthy.
That however, is not clear from the video released, which doesn’t conclusively show anything in Johnson’s hand. According to Oppenheimer, the grass-laden gun, which allegedly had Johnson’s DNA on it and was at the scene of his death, had no fingerprints on it. When asked how the DNA could have gotten on the gun, Oppenheimer told reporters “it’s no difficult task to take the gun and wipe it in some of his blood and there was quite a lot of it there.”
The attorney, who called the Johnson case a “cover up from the beginning,” also criticized Alvarez for allegedly not speaking to several officers who witnessed the shooting. “Not one of those witnesses has given any testimony to the State’s Attorney’s office or to a federal investigation,” said Oppenheimer, who also said that Hernandez didn’t speak to Alvarez either, but gave a deposition to him:
“I asked him if he feared or had any concerned that the State’s Attorney’s office was going to indict him. He said no. That deposition was taken almost a month ago. How in the world does he know that he was not going to be indicted. How does he know that Alvarez is going to do nothing unless he was told so. It is amazing nobody contacted him.”
Oppenheimer also noted that one witness, a civilian known as "witness A," who did speak to the State's Attorney's office, said in a sworn deposition that "the idea of a gun wasn’t really a thing until they (detectives) presented the idea to me, or the situation to me.”
Johnson's mother Dorothy Holmes, who has fought to have the video released, told reporters she hopes someday Alvarez will “feel the pain I feel.”
Black Lives Matter held a demonstration last night evening that began at the location where Johnson was killed. The group also alleged a cover up by officials in the case, saying in a statement:
“Alvarez represents the face of deep seated corruption that pervades every aspect of government in Chicago. Alvarez, CPD and the entire City government are guilty of covering up evidence of the murder of Ronald Johnson.”