Attorney For Father Of Murdered 7-Year-Old Accuses Supt. McCarthy Of Being A 'Bully'
(CBS) -- Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy is being accused of bullying, by the attorney for the father of the seven-year-old boy killed on the 4th of July.
Police Superintendent McCarthy has said that seven-year-old Amari Brown was the unintended victim and that Amari's father Antonio was the target and that if Brown had been in custody, his son would be alive.
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Antonio Brown's attorney Donna Rotunno says McCarthy rushed to judgment because he's under a lot of heat to solve this case.
"He stood up there as a bully, attempting to gather information as quickly as he could. And I don't think he acted responsibly in his comments. And I don't think he was fair in the indictment of my client's character," she said.
Rotunno says Brown believes he was not the target.
"We believe that it was two other people attempting to kill or shoot at each other - and that Mr. Brown and his child were... caught in that crossfire (along with) the woman who was shot," she said.
Attorney Rotunno says that as Brown's attorney, she's been talking to the police from the beginning.
Amari was shot just before midnight Saturday, on the sidewalk, in the 1100 block of North Harding, somewhere the Mayor Rahm Emanuel implied he shouldn't have been.
"The rest of us are saying, that's a seven year old out near midnight...you have a responsibility to that child, and then, to cooperate with the police department on a crime committed to that seven year old," Emanuel said.
A CBS 2 review of Antonio Brown's criminal record shows 33 charges, dating back to 2003, including eight guilty pleas, mostly for misdemeanor and felony drug charges. His last arrest came on April 7, for gun possession. He was freed the next day on $50,000 bond.
"Today, on national news, they're not talking about Spike Lee's movie Chiraq," said St. Sabina Pastor Michael Pfleger. "They're talking about real numbers from the weekend. That should bother us."
And Fr. Pfleger says the problem goes deeper than the actions of Amari Brown's father.
"The killer is unemployment, lack of opportunity, lack of education, lack of economic development, that's the killer," Pfleger said. "So do we want to deal with the killer of the perpetrator of that one incident?"
