A security guard has been shot dead by police after officers responded to a shooting inside a bar and thought he was the gunman, despite people screaming that he was innocent.
The incident, which took place at Manny’s Blue Room Bar in Robbins, Illinois, Chicago, began when security asked a group of drunken men to leave the south suburban bar around 4 a.m. Sunday.
Security guard shot dead by police after they mistook him for shooter at bar
But one of the drunk men returned with a gun and opened fire. Bar security returned fire and 26-year-old armed security guard Jemel Roberson apprehended one of the men involved outside.
“He had somebody on the ground with his knee in back, with his gun in his back like, ‘Don’t move,’” witness Adam Harris said.
Soon after, an officer responding to the scene saw Robinson in that position, holding a gun, and fired at him, killing him.
Harris said:
“Everybody was screaming out, ‘Security!’ He was a security guard. And they still did their job, and saw a black man with a gun, and basically killed him.”
In a statement, Midlothian police confirmed two officers from the department responded to the scene of the shooting and that one of them opened fire.
Chief Daniel Delaney of the Midlothian Police Department said in a statement.
A Midlothian officer encountered a subject with a gun and was involved in an officer-involved shooting. The subject the officer shot was later pronounced deceased at an area hospital.
Friends said Roberson was an upstanding guy who was also a musician, playing keyboard and drums at several Chicago-area churches, who had plans to become a police officer.
Roberson’s family has filed a lawsuit against the officer who shot him and the city’s police department.
