A police officer gunned down an armed black security guard who tried to stop a shooting at a suburban Chicago bar, according to reports Monday.
The 26-year-old guard, Jemel Roberson, had restrained a thug involved in the shooting outside Manny’s Blue Room in Robbins, Ill., after gunfire broke out at 4 a.m. Sunday, according to local station Fox32.
But cops who rushed to the bar mistook the guard for “one of the bad guys,” witness Adam Harris told Fox32.
“Everybody was screaming out, ‘Security! He is a security guard!’ ” Harris told the local station. “They … saw a black man with a gun and basically killed him.”
Earlier in the night, security workers had asked a group of drunken men to leave the bar, and they later returned with a gun, according to WGN-TV.
Roberson tackled one of the men and held him on the ground as he waited for cops to arrive, Harris said.
“The security guard that got killed, he caught somebody and had his knee on him the whole time,” Harris told Fox32.
“Just waiting on the police to get there. I guess when the police got there, they probably thought he was one of the bad guys, ’cause he had his gun on the guy and they shot him,” he said.
Roberson was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died, according to the station.
Four other people, including the suspected gunman, were shot and suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
In a tragic twist, Roberson had long dreamed of becoming a cop, said friends and members of his church.
“The very people that he wanted to be family with took his life,” Patricia Hill, the pastor of his church, told WGN-TV.
Walter Turner, a church friend, added, “How in the world does the security guard get shot by police?”
“[He was] a young man that was literally doing his job and now he’s gone,” he told ABC Chicago.
The Midlothian Police Department is investigating the police-involved shooting, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
“It is the policy of the Midlothian Police Department to utilize the Illinois State Police Public Integrity Task Force for any officer-involved shootings so we can ensure transparency and maintain public trust,” Midlothian police said in a statement, according to the newspaper.
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