A black security guard was shot dead by a police officer as he held down a gunman at the bar where he worked.

Jemel Roberson, 26, was working early Sunday at Manny’s Blue Room ― a bar in the predominantly black Chicago suburb of Robbins, Illinois ― when a patron who was part of a drunken group that had been kicked out returned with a gun at 4 a.m. and opened fire, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Several people were shot.

But witnesses said Roberson became the victim as soon as police arrived. A responding officer with the Midlothian Police Department immediately shot Roberson, who later died at a hospital.

 

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Roberson was known as a musician at local churches who had dreams of becoming a police officer, people who knew him told ABC-7 and WGN-TV.

“How in the world does the security guard get shot by police?” asked Walter Turner, the pastor at New Spiritual Light Baptist Church, where Roberson played the organ. “A young man that was literally doing his job and now he’s gone.”

From August 2016 to May of this year, at least 378 black Americans had been killed by police, and more than 3,357 people have been fatally shot by officers since 2015, HuffPost reported in May.

Source: A Black Security Guard Was Killed By Police As He Tried To Stop A Shooting

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