A South Side mother said she is waiting to hear from police where her 23-year-old son is after witnesses say he was shot by police.
Gwendolyn Moore was looking for answers about her son, Jamal Moore. Moore a passenger in the vehicle. It was not immediately clear who was driving and how many passengers there were in the car.
Yellow police tape cordoned off half a block near the intersection of Garfield Boulevard and Ashland Avenue on south side of the street. A gray SUV with its doors and hatch opened and airbags visibly deployed was among the wreckage on the sidewalk outside of an adjacent gas station and laudromat.
Witnesses told the Defender that police were in pursuit of the SUV, speeding eastbound down Garfield when the SUV collided with another vehicle.
A police news affairs spokesman said he did not immediately have any details from the scene but did confirm that police were involved in shooting at around 11:15 a.m. Saturday.
Pat Camdem, spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police, the police union, told the Defender that he did not have any details from the event. He was on the scene briefly but would not elaborate.
“I don’t have any details,” said Camden. “It’s a police-involved shooting, I’m not sure who they shot.”
But Gwendolyn Moore confirmed with the Defender that it was her son. Moore lives in the 5600 block of South Shields.
The mother said the police didn’t immediately tell her the whereabouts of her son or what happened.
From witnessess on the scene, Moore said she was told her son had been handcuffed by police when “a white female officer shot him twice in the back.” She paced in the rain drizzle among a the crowd that gathered in a White Castle restaurant lot located directly across the street from the scene.
She got a call that Jamal had been involved in Saturday’s accident and had been shot by police.
She said her son is the father of a 3-month old and has had his run-ins with police.
“Yeah, he’s gotten in trouble,” Gwendolyn Moore told the Defender. “But whate’ver trouble he gets in, he didn’t deserve this.”
She said her son was not affiliated with any gang.
Jamal Moore is Ceta Smith’s, 32, youngest brother.
She was weeping and being consoled by supporters as she talked to the Defender. She relied on witnesses to tell her what happened with her brother and his apparent brush with the police.
“He jumped up out the hatchback (of a gray Chevrolet Blazer SUV). When he jumped up out the hatchback the (Chevrolet) Tahoe hit him,” she said. “He fell on the ground and they say the police hopped on him, and when he tried to roll the police off of him the lady (officer) shot him.”
A man who did not want to be identified said the accident scene caught his attention when he heard gunshots. The witness said after the collision, he saw a man jump out of the hatch of the SUV. He said shortly afterward the police shot the man.
The Defender was not able, by this presstime, to confirm which hospital Moore was taken to — if at all, and a spokesman at the medical examiner’s office at around 2:45 p.m. Saturday said the man had not been taken there.
“We don’t know anything about (the case),” said the Medical Examiner’s Office spokeswoman.
The crowd swelled near the insection where the shooting took place. Police Gang Unit officers were watching the crowd, along with other police officers and personnel. At one point, there was a comotion in the crowd and at least one person could be seen ushered into the back of police paddywagon.
But nearly two hours after the shooting, the crowd comotion grew to more mob-like action and at least a half-dozen marked and unmarked police cars rushed to the scene.
Gwendolyn Moore and other family members there said they still had more questions than answers.
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