The mother of the black man who was fatally shot by a suburban Chicago police officer has filed a federal lawsuit accusing law enforcement...
The mother of the black man who was fatally shot by a suburban Chicago police officer has filed a federal lawsuit accusing law enforcement of letting him bleed to death in the eight minutes it for took an ambulance to arrive.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday by Zharvellis Holmes, the mother of 19-year-old Marcellis Stinnette, who was shot to death October 20 by a Waukegan police officer.
Tafara Williams, the 20-year-old black woman who was with Stinnette when he was killed and who was also shot and wounded, filed a similar lawsuit on Wednesday.
Holmes' lawsuit makes many of the same claims as Williams' suit, including that the couple did nothing to justify being confronted by an officer as they sat in their vehicle outside Williams' home, and that the two did nothing to put Officer Dante Salinas' life in danger before he opened fire.
Neither Stinnette nor Williams was armed.
Marcellis Stinnette's mother Zharvellis Holmes, left,has filed a federal lawsuit accusing law enforcement of letting him bleed to death in the 8 minutes it for took an ambulance to arrive
Marcellis Stinnette, 19, and his girlfriend, Tafara Williams, 20, were both shot by Waukegan police officer. Stinnette died in hospital, Williams is still recovering and has also filed a lawsuit
Holmes' lawsuit names Salinas, Officer James Keating, Waukegan Police Chief Wayne Walles and the city of Waukegan.
It highlights what happened in the moments before the shooting and the actions of Keating, who is white and whose confrontation with the couple set in motion the events that led to the shooting.
Keating recognized Stinnette and told him that he was under arrest, the suit says.
On one of the videos that the city released this week, an officer, presumably Keating, can be heard saying he had a warrant for Stinnette's arrest.
The lawsuit says Stinnette had nothing to do with Williams' decision to drive away and did not know that she was about to flee.
Marcellis Stinnette's mother Zharvellis Holmes cries after a press conference on Wednesday, after viewing the videos of the October 20 police shooting in Waukegan that killed her son
Marcellis Stinnette's mother Zharvellis Holmes, left, together with daughter Zhanellis Banks, center, and Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., pictured Wednesday, walking to a press conference
It also suggests that Keating ratcheted up the tension of the situation by falsely claiming on his radio: 'Hey, they just ran me over.'
It also says Williams didn't try to run over Salinas, as he can be heard saying on body camera video that he failed to turn on until after the shooting.
Even after Williams screamed, 'He got shot, he got shot, he needs help,' the officers on the scene 'did not render any aid at this time,' Holmes' lawsuit says.
Officers 'eventually' pulled Stinnette from the vehicle and placed him on the ground, then 'waited on the scene for an ambulance,' the lawsuit says.
Stinnette 'did not receive medical assistance for over eight minutes, while he bled out on the ground,' it says.
Stinnette passed away in hospital, while Williams sustained wounds to her stomach and hand
Body camera footage from the first officer shows the moment he approached the vehicle in which Stinnette and Williams were together, minutes before midnight on October 20
On Wednesday, Waukegan police released clips from multiple cameras to piece together the incident. Although Salinas' bodycam was not on, they were able to obtain his dashcam video
Salinas has been fired following the fatal shooting last week.
Waukegan Police Chief Wayne Walles say Salinas committed 'multiple policies and procedure violations' during the shooting. Salinas, who is Hispanic, was a five-year veteran of the force.
In a news conference held at her hospital beside on Tuesday, Williams recalled the moments leading up to Stinnette's shooting.
She said she and Stinnette were sitting in her car to smoke after putting their seven-month-old son to bed.
Just before midnight, they were approached by a white officer who pulled up to their vehicle and began questioning them.
'I rolled down my windows and turned on all the lights inside the car so the officer could see I had no weapons and I wasn't doing anything illegal,' Williams stated.
Williams said that cop began hassling Stinnette, saying he knew him from when he was in jail and that he was under arrest.
Rayon Edwards speaks on a megaphone as he marches with protesters during a protest rally for Marcellis Stinnette on October 22
She then allegedly asked the officer whether they were free to leave. He did not reply, so Williams says she drove away and the officer did not follow.
Williams claims her car was then subsequently approached by a police vehicle, which was laying in wait. It was being driven by Officer Salinas.
Williams alleges she then lost control of her car, which prompted Salinas to fire his gun as he gave chase.
'There was a crash and I lost control. The officer was shooting at us. The car ended up slamming into a building. I kept screaming, "I don't have a gun." But they kept shooting. He told me to get out of the car. I had my hands up, and I couldn't move because I had been shot.'
Salinas disputes that version of events, saying that he shot in self-defense after the car began to reverse towards him.
On Wednesday, Waukegan police released clips from multiple cameras to piece together the incident.
Although Salinas' bodycam was not on, they were able to obtain bodycam footage from the first officer who confronted Stinnette and Williams in the car.
There also is dashcam video from Salinas' vehicle.
That footage shows a high-speed chase through Waukegan that ended with Salinas firing his weapon multiple times.
Lake County State's Attorney Michael Nerheim has asked the U.S. Justice Department to 'review the circumstances' surrounding the October 20 shooting, and once the independent investigation is completed it will be turned over to the state's attorney office for review.
Walles and an attorney representing the city, Rick Hammond, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Protests since the incident have been largely peaceful, and Waukegan has avoided the kind of looting and violence that occurred in nearby Kenosha, Wisconsin, just 15 miles north of Waukegan, after a white police officer shot a black man, Jacob Blake, in the back seven times in August.
Yet, Williams told protesters in a telephone call from her hospital bed that she would continue to fight for justice on Stinnette's behalf.
'He didn't deserve it, and they waited for him to die,' she said Saturday on a call that a crowd of protesters heard after her mother put a megaphone to her cellphone.
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