Mom finds out about sons death in church on Mothers day and Bobby Rush is mad at Police
Staff Writer
2010-05-13
.bugnews.bloggieblog.com .
Today U.S. Representative Bobby L. Rush (D-IL) sent a letter to Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis charging that the police department is ignoring the homicide of 35-year-old Anthony Kyser who was allegedly strangled to death May 8 by an employee of CVS pharmacy. The legislator sent the letter after the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office responded to his inquiry about the murder indicating police had yet to contact the agency’s felony review unit so charges might be filed.
Mr. Kyser was suspected of shoplifting from a CVS Pharmacy in the 2600 block of Pulaski Road around 11 AM Saturday. He was chased from the store and ran into an adjacent alley where he was reportedly beaten, stomped and strangled to death by a store manager and others. Ann Marie Kyser, the mother of the victim, asked the congressman to pursue justice for her son. Anthony’s mother told Rush she learned of her son’s homicide while sitting in church on Mother’s Day.
“Why is the police department ignoring the murder of an unarmed citizen in broad daylight on the streets of Chicago,” Rush asked. “Anthony Kyser was chased from a store where he was allegedly beaten and strangled to death by a CVS store manager; and, despite eyewitness accounts and a ruling from the medical examiner that his death was indeed a homicide, the Chicago police have not filed any charges with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. Such inaction is iniquitous.
“A man’s civil and human rights were violated. He lost his life. Though Mr. Kyser was only suspected of shoplifting we have something in this country called due process,” Rush said. “This is a classic case of people taking the law into their own hands and ultimately acting as judge, jury and executioner over a tube of toothpaste and a box of crayons. There was no reason for this man to die.
“I am asking the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County State’s Attorney to stop playing political hot potato with this case and to file charges against those responsible for this man’s homicide,” Rush said. “Otherwise, I may ask the U.S. Justice Department Civil Rights Division to investigate this matter, if our local law enforcement agencies will not.”
Since news of the Mr. Kyser case broke nationally, the lawmaker’s office has received consumer complaints alleging a pattern and practice of racial profiling incidents at various CVS store locations across the country.