Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – The police investigation of a shots-fired call Saturday is upsetting some aldermen, community activists, and the mother of a fourteen-year-old Black boy. Jenna Guzman (pictured, lower left) told aldermen Tuesday an officer chased her son, tackled him, and arrested him for resisting police. Police chief Joe Behl (pictured, right) defended his officer’s action, saying the teen, dressed in black, fit the description of at least one suspect in the nearby incident. Guzman says not only was her son innocent, but he also didn’t even fit the suspect’s description.
Ald. Shawn Gregory (pictured, upper left) said it’s another case of police going after the wrong person and arresting him anyway. The charge, reportedly, has since been dropped. “I’m just tired of it,” Gregory told the chief. “We have had too many situations. I’m tired of it. We have never had this many people,”
Ald. Jennifer Notariano said instead of chasing the boy, the officer should have been compassionate. “I would say, putting myself in the shows of a fourteen-year-old, I would be afraid. I don’t know if that’s the case, but I would make that assumption. And i think it’s a pretty good assumption.”
Ald. Roy Williams (pictured, upper left, second from left) went further. “The only way we can stop this, guys, is if we start teaching our community what’s going on and how this mayor supports this chief that allows these things to happen, because they don’t have to be just so automatic. She should care enough to look at how many times it happens, how often it happens.”
Williams picketed Mayor Misty Buscher‘s re-election announcement last month. Racial tensions between police and the community have roiled since the July 2024 police killing of a Black woman, Sonya Massey, who made a 9-1-1 call from her Springfield-area home.
