“Bogus” charges that were lobbed against a grieving Chicago mother whose daughter was shot and killed at a South Side convenience store have been dismissed.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Nyisha Beemon was slapped with two misdemeanor counts of battery and resisting an officer, while she was grieving the death of her daughter, Jaya Beemon at the hospital.
Beemon told the newspaper that “officers did not have a reason to arrest” her, referring to the charges as bogus.
The mother is thankful that the state’s attorney’s office dropped the charges, a mere two days before Jaya’s funeral.
The incident started on Feb. 25, when Jaya Beemon was one of five people shot—and the only one killed—after several gunmen opened fire into an Avalon Park convenience store, apparently targetting a boy who was inside, police believe the Sun-Times noted.
Nyisha Beemon rushed to the University of Chicago Medical Center’s emergency department but lost consciousness while viewing Jaya’s body.
When she came to, she said a plainclothes officer was dragging her from the room.
“They said I wasn’t grieving appropriately,” Nyisha Beemon said. “That’s a lie … Grieving is not against the law.”
Police accused the devastated mother of pushing and kicking an officer but then said that they would be reviewing the incident.
Beemon was later visited by CPD Director of Public Engagement Glenn Brooks, who told the Sun-Times that he told the distraught mother that the department “regretted the circumstances that led to the arrest and shared our deepest condolence for the loss of her daughter, Jaya.”
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office said that the charges were filed without their view and emphasized that prosecutors would work “quickly to dismiss the charges so that a grieving mother can mourn the loss of her daughter in peace.”
Beemon described her daughter, who was a nursing student, as someone who “was always laughing.”
There is currently a $12,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the shooters.