Re: [Peace] Racial Profiling Incident Leads to Police Shooting of “Toto” Kaiyewu

Thu Apr 23 00:56:59 CDT 2009

>From the Daily Illini - April 22nd
http://www.dailyillini.com/news/2009/04/22/mom-of-man-killed-in-incident-with-champaign-police-speaks-in-urbana
 --Jenifer

--- On Wed, 4/22/09, Brian Dolinar <briandolinar at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Brian Dolinar <briandolinar at gmail.com>
Subject: [Peace] Racial Profiling Incident Leads to Police Shooting of “Toto” Kaiyewu
To: "Court Watch" <announce at communitycourtwatch.org>, stop at iresist.org, "coalition at iresist.org" <coalition at iresist.org>, "AWARE peace" <peace at lists.chambana.net>, spalaska at illinois.edu, JSusler at aol.com, "Public i" <print at ucimc.org>
Date: Wednesday, April 22, 2009, 7:52 PM

#yiv1934176807 <!--

 _filtered #yiv1934176807 {panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
#yiv1934176807  
#yiv1934176807 p.MsoNormal, #yiv1934176807 li.MsoNormal, #yiv1934176807 div..MsoNormal
	{margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:10.0pt;}
#yiv1934176807 .MsoChpDefault
	{font-size:10.0pt;}
 _filtered #yiv1934176807 {margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
#yiv1934176807 div.Section1
	{}
#yiv1934176807 

A press conference was held at the Independent Media Center with the family of Oluwatofunmi Kaiyewu, a 23 year-old medical student who was killed by police on April 6, 2009. This bizarre series of events began in the former “sundown town” of Villa Grove, 15 minutes southeast of Urbana, led to a car chase, and ended on Interstate 74 with five bullets fired by officers from three departments―University of Illinois Police, Champaign County Sheriff’s Department, and Vermilion County Sheriff’s Department.  

The Kaiyewu family drove from Texas to hold the press conference and visit the site where their son was gunned down. They were joined by Jan Susler of the People’s Law Office, a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and known for her defence of Puerto Rican political prisoners. They had heard little from police about what happened and wanted answers.

The incident occurred in Villa Grove, a small town where blacks are rarely ever seen. As James Loewen documents in his book Sundown Towns, Villa Grove was one of hundreds of towns throughout Illinois where blacks were not to be caught on the streets after sundown. For many years, a siren that was sounded at the end of every day still remained on top of the tower in the center of town. 

According to an initial press release, on Monday night, April 6, a local police officer in Villa Grove witnessed a “suspicious” vehicle―a Toyota Camry given to Kaiyewu by his parents―at a convenience store along Route 130. An officer witnessed a traffic violation and he proceeded to stop the car. 

Police say the driver got out of his car, refused to follow orders, pushed the officer, got back in his car, and took off. A car chase ensued that involved at least a dozen squad cars from several local agencies. When police finally blew out his tires, they say Kaiyewu came at them brandishing a machete and a handknife.

Police fired Tasers―which Champaign County Sheriffs are allowed to carry―but say they failed to subdue Kaiyewu. When he began swinging the two weapons, police say they fired their “duty weapons” fatally shooting the suspect. 

At the press conference, members of his family said that Toto was a good Christian who was going to medical school and planned in the future to do missionary work in Africa. Although he was born in the United States, his parents came here in 1980 from Nigeria. 

Several others came to the press conference to show local support for the Kaiyewu family, including individuals from the Center for African Studies, Ministerial Alliance, and Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice.

Letters of support have poured in from Toto’s friends in Texas and Carbondale. One wrote on the website of the Independent Media Center, “My condolence with toto’s family, he was a good friend of mine in med. school, great guy I’m gon’ miss him.”

Due to what was called “wild and totally inaccurate speculation in the media,” police released their own prepared statement just hours after the family’s press conference. Delivering the statement in front of his office, Champaign County Sheriff Dan Walsh disputed many of the questions raised by the family, information no one was previously willing to provide them. 

Walsh addressed the question of profiling, but failed to mention racism. “It is non-sensicle,” he said, “to suggest that police ‘profiled’ a seven year old Toyota vehicle and its occupant.” Of course, at issue is not the make of his car. As the family asked, would this have happened to a white student driving a Toyota through Villa Grove?

A toxicology report is still pending and the Sheriff says that when the investigation by the Illinois State Police is finished, video may be released to the public.

BD 
-- 
Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
303 W. Locust St.
Urbana, IL 61801
briandolinar at gmail.com

-----Inline Attachment Follows-----

_______________________________________________
Peace mailing list
Peace at lists.chambana.net
http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace/attachments/20090422/2908c594/attachment.html