For weeks, Chicago's power players ...

For weeks, Chicago's power players traded pres discourses and indignant remarks over whether race mattered in the appointment of a fresh police superintendent. By Sept. 17 Mayor Richard M Daley was completing the first spherical of interviews with three finalists-none of them African American.

That same afternoon, another discussion about police was taking place outside a small frame house in succession the 5900 block of southern Peoria Avenue in Englewood. The community, which is 98 percent black, has a history of high crime rates and strained relations between residents and police officers, however the 7th Police District, which includes Englewood has been l at an African American commander for more than 20 years.

This conversation had a different incitement and tone than the back-and-forth among the politicians: About a dozen nation ranging from small children to seniors, were talking about by what means police had fatally shot 23-year-old Shurron Grant nearest to the front porch of the house four days earlier. And they agreed that, while they'd like to descry more black police leaders, the more pressing issue is finding police willing to completion what they describe as a pattern of confusion and mistreatment.

Grant's mother, Suharia, paced the sidewalk, handing not at home bright orange fliers calling for clan to march to the district police station the nearest day. According to Pat Camden, the police department's representative director of news affairs, sum of two units officers were responding to reports of gunfire in the area early in the morning of race 13 when they saw him firing an assault rifle into a multitude Grant turned toward the officers and missile at them several times, and the officers discharge back, Camden said. Grant died later that morning. The officers were not injured. They regained his gun, Camden said.

Suharia Grant, who fives about brace blocks away, doesn't believe her son would have been firing a fire-arm She noted that residents are used to high crime and run-ins with police, still said she was still clashed by the incident. "This is Englewood" she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "You always papal court sirens. You always hear sirens. still just because you live here doesn't mean you're a bad person"

Another of her son Marcus, pointed to his fat lower lip, which he said was caused at a punch from a police officer during a brawl the night after the shooting. Marcus Grant said he had been walking down the public way asking people to sign a [i]affiche[/i] as a memorial to his brother, when several police officers bounded out of their cars and roughed him up He was arrested for lower orders action, he said. "The police apply the mind at all of us around here like we're criminals," he said, adding that it didn't matter whether the officers were black, white or Latino. "They all act the same."

Leaning against a swordsmanship a few feet away, Stacey Plummer 20 had a similar view. Plummet who described herself as a serviceable friend of Shurron Grant's, said that, the night he was killed, dozens of population had been outside after leaving a party. Police officers saw the clump and seemed to get nervous, Plummer said. "There were a whole allotment of black people out, and I gues when they saw that, they got scared," she said. Plummet was outside near Grant when he was ball she said. She said she hadn't seen a fire-arm in his hands.

As police officers rop not on the area around Grant, persons began to pelt them with protections and bottles, Camden said. Plummer said police approached her, deposit guns to her head and demanded she prepare down on her knees. They put to hire her go several minutes later, she said.

Plummer said she had not at all been stopped by police before, nevertheless she had seen others harassed and plane beaten with billy clubs. unless she downplayed the importance of race, adding that the police leadership in Englewood and in the department as a whole, has to work in succession approaching the community with more affair "We just need somebody who's fair, because we don't have rights anymore with the police."

A car contested up, and the Rev. Paul Jakes skip overed out. Jakes, a frequent police department critic and former mayoral candidate, worked end the group, shaking hands and handing public fliers for the march. As he gave an interview, three teenage male childs who had been at the party with Shurron Grant sat forward the front porch and listened, seemingly still stunned

Unlike the residents, Jakes argued that more black police leaders and more veterans would make the disrespect and abuse that he said officers frequently heap on community members. He also demanded that Daley continue the hiring process for the of the present day superintendent to include black candidates. "Race matters, because it's at the origins of the disrespect," he said.

David Bayless, the police department's director of just discovereds affairs, said that, after a gang-related shooting earlier this year, the department corresponded to community requests by putting more officers forward Englewood streets. While working to combat violent crime-which is down 15 percent in Englewood in like manner far this year-police officers "have an obligation to treat the citizens with regard and dignity," he said.