Memorial Service Held For Rekia Boyd Near Spot Where She Was Fatally Shot By Cop
CHICAGO (CBS) -- In Douglas Park on Chicago's Near West Side, near the spot where a police officer shot and killed 22-year-old Rekia Boyd three years ago, a few dozen people held a memorial service for her and others they say are casualties of war.
"We are honoring the lives that have been lost in the war on blackness," said Kristiana Colon, an organizer of Chicago's Let Us Breathe Coalition. "And the war on blackness is disguised in the media as the war on crime and the war on gangs. And we are acknowledging that the lives that are lost in those battles are just as valuable and just as important as the lives as we've lost abroad in the war on terror and the other wars this country has waged."
Colon and others say that too often, the war means young African Americans on one side and police on the other.
The officer who shot and killed Rekia Boyd in 2012 was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter last month in a controversial directed verdict.