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First as tragedy, then as farce
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Serbian troops begin to leave Kosovo and refugees plan their return as a welcome but uncertain peace takes hold in the region.
By Laura Rozen
[06/10/99]

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It's all very strange.

Once again, police brutality is making its way to the front pages of American newspapers. Last week, ministers from Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition sat down with Hillard to discuss the recent shootings, and the U.S. Justice Department is considering launching an investigation.

But this case is notably different from the recent charges of excessive force in New York and California. In February, when four white New York City police officers gunned down Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African street vendor living in the Bronx, it was easy to frame the incident in terms of race. But these Chicago shootings do not follow any familiar pattern of police racism. The realities are more complex, and in many ways more disturbing. In Chicago, where police always take care of their own and where many politicians are former police officers, achieving justice in such matters is nearly impossible.

The first shooting occurred on the night of June 4. Police on the South Side pursued a car driven by 24-year-old Raymond Smith after he'd tried to "back over" them, according to the officers' accounts. Smith fled the scene. Cops shouted at his passenger, a 26-year-old computer consultant named LaTanya Haggerty, to get out of the car. Instead, Haggerty reached for her cell phone, which an officer mistook for a gun. She was killed instantly.

A few hours later, at 1 a.m. on June 5, 22-year-old Robert Russ was driving home to visit his family in suburban Calumet City. Police flagged him for "driving erratically." A five-mile chase resulted. Russ finally spun out of control and stopped on the Dan Ryan Expressway. When he refused to get out of the car, an officer smashed the passenger window with a 9 mm pistol. Russ grabbed the gun, it fired, and he was dead.

Haggerty had no criminal record. Subsequent newspaper accounts of her life portrayed her as almost angelic: She smiled all the time, collected stuffed animals, kept a stash of junk food in her desk, and liked to vacation in Las Vegas with her girlfriends. Russ had previously served 18 months court supervision for assaulting an Evanston police officer who'd tried to break up a fight. But he'd also been an honor student and star football player at Northwestern University. He was supposed to graduate this week.

Though both victims were unarmed, the police department quickly ruled both shootings justifiable, and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley quickly rallied to their defense.

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