On Mar. 25, Chicago’s “Independent Police Review Authority” officially exonerated the police officer who shot Aaron Harrison in the back in August 2007. Harrison was an 18-year-old African American, whose murder sparked mass protest.
The guilty officer will receive no punishment from the IPRA despite the fact that dozens of witnesses reported that Harrison was unarmed. The IPRA report admits, “There is a clear conflict between the eyewitnesses who say that … [Harrison] did not have a gun in his hand and the officers who say that he did.”
The shooting spurred a number of marches on the District 11 police station. Protesters also took over a monthly police board meeting, causing the board members to hastily adjourn the meeting and quickly flee the room.
The IPRA is hardly independent of the racist police. It was created in 1974 and was a division of the Chicago Police Department until 2007. Between 2000 and 2007, it found every fatal police shooting but one to be justified.
