Black Lives Matter Chicago filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the city's Independent Police Review Authority over an open records request for documents about Dante Servin, the police officer responsible for Rekia Boyd's death.
Boyd, 22, was killed in 2012 when Servin, who was off duty, shot into a crowd that he was arguing with over the amount of noise they were making. Servin was acquitted last April on involuntary manslaughter charges in Boyd's shooting death and remains on the Chicago police force.
Jason Tompkins, a Black Lives Matter Chicago activist, filed a Freedom of Information Act request in November with IPRA for its investigative records related to Servin.
In December, an IPRA official wrote to Tompkins saying that the agency could not comply with the open records request, as written, because it was "onerous and unduly burdensome." In the letter, IPRA said it would give Tompkins 14 days to narrow his open records request.
An IPRA spokesman told DNAinfo Chicago that Tompkins has not submitted a narrowed records request to the agency.
Black Lives Matter Chicago, meanwhile, explained in a press release why it is suing IPRA.
"As the suit notes, 'There is a tremendous public interest in knowing whether IPRA should have previously disciplined Servin,'" the release said. "It is likely that the legal defense funds the city has recently allocated fighting other FOIA cases far exceeds the labor costs necessary for IPRA to comply with this request. IPRA is literally arguing that this information isn't important enough to justify two weeks of work."
Black Lives Matter Chicago and other groups have been demanding that the city's police board fire Servin and revoke his pension.
Among the groups pushing for justice in the Boyd case is BYP 100, a national organization of young black activists aged 18 to 35. On Monday, the group released an "Agenda to Build Black Futures."
"The Agenda to Build Black Futures is a set of economic goals and structural changes that could improve the lives of Black people living in America," reads BYP 100's website. "We envision a more economically just society that values the lives and well-being of ALL Black people, including women, queer, and transgender folks, the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated as well as those who languish in the bottom 1 percent of the economic hierarchy. The Agenda to Build Black Futures is a call-to-action for everyone who is committed to Black liberation."
Agenda items include:
Click through for more on BYP 100's Agenda to Build Black Futures.