Prosecutors Claim 19-Year-Old Was Armed When Shot By Police


POSTED: 12:16 pm CDT May 15, 2008
UPDATED: 2:04 pm CDT May 15, 2008

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Images: Witnesses Claim Police Misconduct


Witnesses: Police Planted Gun After Shooting Teen
Prosecutors Claim 19-Year-Old Was Armed When Shot By Police

POSTED: 12:16 pm CDT May 15, 2008
UPDATED: 2:04 pm CDT May 15, 2008


CHICAGO -- Relatives, witnesses and friends of a 19-year-old man shot and wounded by police on Mother's Day allege that a gun was planted on him after he was shot, according to an exclusive NBC5 News report.

"It was wrong for them to shoot him like that," the injured man's mother said.




But prosecutors said Javara Gardner, charged with assaulting a police officer, was shot after he dropped a gun and tried to pick it up.

Gardner was pushing his 2-year-old son in a stroller when the shooting took place in an alley behind the 5800 block of South Damen, said witness James Edwards, who said he was with Gardner when the shooting occurred.

"He was pushing the stroller, then the police shot him two times in the back," Edwards said.

Witness Diana Banks said a policewoman took a gun she found in a nearby yard and "put it by the boy's head."

An unidentified friend of Gardner's claimed the gun was his and that he hid it in the yard when he saw police approaching.

A spokesman for the Independent Police Review Authority, Mark Payne, said at the scene, "It is believed the adult male had the gun. That's what was reported, and we're investigating it."
"I don't think it's right," said the 19-year-old's aunt, Margaret Gardner. "Who can you trust if you can't trust the law? Then who are we to trust?"

Contrary to the story presented by prosecutors, witnesses told NBC5's Marion Brooks that after shooting Gardner, police turned him over and kicked him several times, asking, "Where is the gun?"

Gardner's sister, Michelle Gardner-Abernathy, said her younger brother got the news on Tuesday that he would never walk again.