A mother remains desperate for answers more than a year after Chester police killed her son.
—
Last Friday’s brief demonstration at Chester’s City Hall by Philadelphia activists to demand answers regarding the police killing of Mr. Frank McQueen was the best protest Ms. Del Matthews, Mr. McQueen’s grieving mother, had ever been to; and since the 2014 fatal officer-involved shooting in Chester, Pennsylvania, that ended only after her son was shot more than 20 times, Mrs. Matthews has been to quite a few.
“It was the first time I’ve seen her smile after a demonstration,” Mr. Asa Khalif, an activist with the Philly Coalition for R.E.A.L Justice and the founder of the Black Lives Matter Pennsylvania chapter, said.
While a number of protesters last week occupied the lobby of City Hall with signs, Mrs. Matthews, who said her smile died along with her son, had a private meeting with newly elected Chester Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland and members of his Administration – only after a more inclusive meeting with the Mayor, Mrs. Matthews and activists, including Mr. Khalif, grew tense and ceased – and they told her that they’d do all they can to deliver the information she requested by this Friday. Mrs. Matthews, though she believes in her heart Mayor Kirkland will do what it takes to have the papers released, has heard this language before: The former Mayor of Chester, Mr. John Linder, in a similarly private meeting, pledged to give her closure by providing details into the June 2nd, 2014 shooting, but “he lied to me,” Mrs. Matthews said.
The only thing Mrs. Matthews knows about the shooting is from what she read on a vague police report – that Mr. McQueen shot an officer and officers shot back, though the report doesn’t indicate how many officers discharged their weapon – and from what she learned from others. Ms. Matthews, who says she didn’t identify Mr. McQueen’s body but rather officials identified him through his tattoos, claims that on the day her son died, she was given medicine so that she wouldn’t have a heart attack, which caused her not to remember that Monday.
“All I remember is waking up that Tuesday morning,” she said today in an exclusive interview with Techbook Online.
Mrs. Matthews, a resident of North Philadelphia, defines herself as someone desperate for answers.
“This woman has been begging for information for a year and a f*cking half; they’ve completely dismissed her,” Mr. Khalif, one of five activists arrested at City Hall last Friday for failing to disperse, told me.
Mr. Greg Brinkley, a private investigator and one of the activists who occupied the lobby on Friday but avoided arrest, questioned why, if the government doesn’t have anything to hide, doesn’t Mrs. Matthews have the documents – witness statements and discovery, for example – she requested long ago. After speaking to several witnesses of the shooting, Mr. Greg Brinkley, who, along with Mr. Ed Lloyd, investigated the fatal officer-involved shooting of Mr. Brandon Tate-Brown, said he has “strong concerns” that something illegal is at play. Until he’s proven otherwise, Mr. Brinkley, who wants to know where is the gun that Mr. McQueen allegedly shot a cop with, is classifying the shooting as “an execution.”
Ms. Matthews said an execution is how the funeral director that laid Mr. McQueen to rest described his death. That description, more so the police’s overkill is why Mr. McQueen’s mother has gone to the length she has for the truth. Putting her home up for sale to pay for exhuming the body and an independent autopsy is just one example of how dedicated Mrs. Matthews is to this cause.
“My son will not rest until I rest,” stated Mrs. Matthews, who believes a lot of her answers lie in Mr. McQueen’s body.
Thanks for reading. Until next time, I’m Flood the Drummer® & I’m Drumming for JUSTICE!