Activists Protesting Dearborn Police Shooting Vow Boycott: Video

DEARBORN, MI – Led by the family of Kevin Matthews, who was fatally shot by a Dearborn police officer last month, and the Rev. Charles Williams II of the National Action Network, protesters called for justice during a demonstration on Michigan Avenue Monday night.

Matthews, 35, of Detroit, was unarmed when he was shot during a struggle after allegedly going for the officer’s gun on Dec. 23.

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Waving placards that read “We Want Justice for All” and “We Demand Human Rights,” the 150 to 200 protesters demanded change in the hour-long rally and called for an economic boycott of Dearborn businesses.

“We will not be spending dollars in Dearborn,” Williams said, according to a Detroit Free Press report. “No justice, no dollars.”

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Matthews’ mother, Valerie Johnson, told reporters she wants to “get justice for my son.”

Outside the Dearborn Police Department on Michigan Avenue, the demonstrators chanted: “Hey hey, ho ho, these racist cops have got to go.”

The rally was peaceful, but tensions ran high when Dearborn police surrounded a small group in the Kroger parking lot and asked them to leave because it was private property. The group dispersed without incident.

Matthews, who reportedly had escaped from Dearborn officers earlier on the day he died, was shot after a short foot chase that started in Dearborn and ended in a back yard several blocks away in Detroit. He reportedly had been picked up on suspicion of larceny, and was also wanted on a misdemeanor warrant from Redford Township.

Matthews is black and the officer, who hasn’t been named, is white. The officer, a five-year veteran of the police department, has been placed on administrative leave pending the completion of an investigation by the Detroit Police Department.

Matthews has been described as a harmless individual who suffers from paranoid-schizophrenia. Dearborn police say he has repeatedly caused problems in the city, but activists say police targeted him. Before the Dec. 23 shooting, officers took him home, rather than to jail, activists said.

Marchers said Monday that it’s imperative that the shooting be thoroughly investigated.

“I think that we all can agree that when a police officer shoots someone ... it needs to be investigated,” Joe McGuire, of Dearborn, told The Detroit News while carrying a handmade cardboard sign that read: “Authority without accountability is injustice.”