No charges for man who killed robber during summer looting in Chicago
CHICAGO - A man who killed someone who was trying to rob him during the widespread mayhem in Chicago over the death of George Floyd last summer won’t face criminal charges, police said Tuesday.
A Chicago Police Department spokesman said the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office last week rejected charges against the man after determining he acted in self defense. A spokeswoman for the state’s attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"The incident is currently classified as Exceptionally Cleared/Closed," police spokesman Officer Steve Rusanov wrote in an email.
The man, whose name has not been released because he was not charged, was on the city’s West Side June 2 when Laronzo Thomas, 31, and at least one other man tried to rob him and another man. Citing a police report, the Chicago Tribune reported that as Thomas tried to rob him, the man grabbed a metal bar and struck Thomas in the abdomen then fled in a vehicle.
Thomas was taken by ambulance to West Suburban Medical Center in nearby Oak Park later in the day. He was released from the hospital, but was readmitted three days later and died on June 5.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that the man died from complications of assault.
Chicago was among a number of U.S. cities where protests devolved into widespread vandalism after video was shown around the world of a white Minneapolis police officer pressing his knee on the neck of Floyd, a Black man, for more than nine minutes.
In Chicago, vandals smashed their way into scores of businesses, and made off with merchandise and other items in the chaos that police at the time said led to at least two shooting deaths and dozens of arrests.
The trial of Derek Chauvin, who faces murder and manslaughter charges in Floyd’s death, began this week in Minneapolis.