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Vol. 76/No. 44      December 3, 2012

 
N. Chicago: 1 year since death
from cops’ Taser and beating
 
BY JOHN HAWKINS  
NORTH CHICAGO, Ill.—More than 100 people joined a march and motorcade here Nov. 10, marking the first anniversary of the death of Darrin Hanna, 45, at the hands of local cops.

Hanna, an African-American, was brutally beaten by six police officers Nov. 6, 2011, and repeatedly shocked with a Taser during a 20-minute arrest for allegedly attacking his pregnant girlfriend. He died a week later.

Sponsored by a number of organizations, including Operation PUSH and the Far-South Suburban branch of the NAACP, the demonstration received a warm response from onlookers. Some residents joined the march as it made its way from the site where Hanna was beaten to City Hall. Some carried hand-lettered signs reading, “Prosecute killer cops,” “Get killer cops off the streets,” and “Fight police brutality.”

“My son was beaten beyond recognition. There were seven men involved, not one. We cannot stop now,” Gloria Carr, Hanna’s mother, said at the rally.

Opening the rally at City Hall, Illinois state Representative Rita Mayfield, a cousin of Hanna, thanked North Chicago Mayor Leon Rockingham, who also spoke at the rally, for granting a permit for the action.

“Only one of the seven officers who were there was fired. Not one of the other six intervened to stop it. That’s depraved indifference,” Mayfield said.

Family members of other police brutality victims were among the speakers. They included Wayne Watts, the uncle of Stephon Watts, a 15-year-old autistic youth killed by Calumet City cops in February; Margaret Rollins, mother of 17-year-old Jeffrey Lewis, gunned down by Waukegan cops in August 2008; and Rosalind Morgan, the wife of Howard Morgan, shot 28 times by Chicago cops in 2005.

Other speakers included Bishop Tavis Grant, Operation PUSH national field director; Hanna family attorney Kevin O’Connor; Lake County Coroner Thomas Rudd; and attorney Stephen Potts. Potts filed a suit in federal court Nov. 5 against North Chicago police on behalf of Clarice Stingley for abuse of her 11-year-old son, Keywan Little.

“Mayor Rockingham and Chief [James] Jackson appear to be trying to do something about police brutality,” Ralph Peterson, Hanna’s cousin and a principal organizer of the action, told participants. “But there’s a virus in the North Chicago Police Department and we’ve got to get rid of it. At the very least those cops who were involved in Darrin’s death should not work there anymore.”  
 
 
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