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WORLD> America
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Black man's killing by police shakes US town
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-04-11 22:27 All agree Shaun Monroe, who had an arrest record for assault and battery but no current warrants, drove up the driveway and went into the house. Two white police officers followed him. Within minutes, he ran back outside, followed by an unidentified officer who Tasered him in the front yard.
Seeing the commotion, Bernard Monroe confronted the officer. Police said that he advanced on them with a pistol and that Cox, who was still inside the house, shot at him through a screen door. Monroe fell dead. How many shots were fired isn't clear; the coroner has refused to release an autopsy report, citing the active investigation. Police said Monroe was shot after he pointed a gun at them, though no one claims Monroe fired shots. Friends and family said he was holding a bottle of sports water. They accuse police of planting a gun he owned next to his body. "Mr. Ben didn't have a gun," said 32-year-old neighbor Marcus Frazier, who was there that day. "I saw that other officer pick up the gun from out of a chair on the porch and put it by him." Frazier said Monroe was known to keep a gun for protection because of local drug activity. Despite the chase and Tasering, Shaun Monroe was not arrested. Monroe's gun is being DNA-tested by state police. The findings of their investigation will be given to District Attorney Jonathan Stewart, who would decide whether to file charges. "We've had a good relationship, blacks and whites, but this thing has done a lot of damage," said Michael Wade, one of three blacks on the five-member town council. "To shoot down a family man that had never done any harm, had no police record, caused no trouble. Suddenly everyone is looking around wondering why it happened and if race was the reason." Homer, a town of 3,800 about 50 miles northeast of Shreveport, is in piney woods just south of the Arkansas state line. Many people work in the oil or timber industries. In the old downtown, shops line streets near the antebellum Claiborne Parish courthouse on the town square. The easygoing climate, blacks say, masked police harassment. The black community has focused its anger on Police Chief Russell Mills, who is white. They say he's directed a policy of harassment toward them. The FBI and State Police said they received no complaints about Homer police before the shooting. Mills declined interview requests, saying he retained a lawyer and feared losing his job. He and several Homer police officers stood alongside a road as marchers filed by Friday. In a town where many know each other, he shook the hands of several people. Several Justice Department mediators accompanied Sharpton and the other marchers. The Rev. Willie Young, pastor of the Baptist church where the march began, said "things begin to happen" when Sharpton lends his time to a cause. "I want you to meet the new South," he said at the rally. "Things will never be the same. Homer will never be the same."
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