Sun-Times Sues City To Get Joshua Beal Shooting Reports

CHICAGO, IL - The Chicago Sun-Times is continuing its investigation into a police involved fatal shooting in Mount Greenwood a year-and-a-half after the incident caused a week of racial tension in the far Southwest Side Chicago neighborhood. The newspaper published an investigative news piece and an editorial on the matter over the past week with new information on the case. Information they say was only released as a result of a lawsuit they filed against the city of Chicago.

Intriguing as part of the investigation is the statements made by a witness to the Nov. 5, 2016 incident in which Joshua Beal, a 25-year-old man from Indianapolis, was fatally shot by Chicago Police Officer Joseph Treacy and Sgt. Thomas Derouin. The witness, a bartender at Joseph’s Restaurant & Bar, was outside for a smoke break when the events unfolded.

The bartender said a man in a red T-shirt, later identified as Treacy, identified himself as a police officer well before he shot Beal. It's unclear whether Beal tried to fire his gun at the officers before he was shot, but according to the officers he did load a round in its chamber and pointed it at them.

The confrontation arose when a white driver used the N-word at one of the African-American drivers during the funeral procession. Another African-American in the procession got out of his car and punched the white driver in the face.

During what the Sun-Times referred to as a "Wild West melee," a white off-duty firefighter was assaulted and shown in photos released to the paper by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability as bleeding from the head. Still, he later performed CPR on Beal after the shooting.

Another witness who called 911 was punched in the back of the head by someone else in the funeral procession, the report shows.

“The N-word started it,” Blake Horwitz, an attorney representing Beal's fiancee in a lawsuit against the city, said.

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The Sun-Times says three city agencies are still investigating the case and won't talk about it.

In an opinion piece, the Sun-Times' editorial board holds that the public needs more answers, that not all the pieces have been put together and that it should not take this long to get them.

"Eighteen months is surely enough time to review notes, interview witnesses and clarify confusing details so there’s no room for misjudgment and bias on either side," the editorial reads, in part. "Surely at least one agency — whether it’s COPA, the city’s Inspector General, or the Chicago Fire Department’s internal affairs division — can lay out the facts from beginning to end in a full report. "

Photo: Chicago Police Officers respond to the Nov. 5, 2016 police-involved shooting on 111th Street in Mount Greenwood. Patch file photo / Tim Moran