LAW WITHOUT JUSTICE IS A WOUND WITHOUT CURE

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On November 11, 2018, 26-year-old Jemel Roberson was working as an armed security guard at Manny’s Blue Room in Robbins, Illinois, when a shooting broke out inside the bar.

Several people were wounded during the initial shooting. Roberson, who was working security, pursued one of the suspected shooters outside and held him on the ground while armed as police began arriving.

Then a Midlothian police officer arrived.

The officer was Ian Covey, who was responding to reports of an active shooter.

Covey encountered Roberson in the parking lot with a gun. According to the later prosecutor’s review, Roberson was dressed in black and was holding another man on the ground while pointing his firearm in the direction of people leaving the bar and arriving police.

Covey ordered Roberson to drop his weapon and get down. Police dash-camera footage captured audio of the commands, although there was no body-camera footage from Covey because he was not wearing one. Covey then fired four shots, striking Roberson.

Roberson died shortly afterward.

But witnesses described the encounter differently.

Several people at the scene said they were shouting that Roberson was a security guard, and another security guard told investigators that he had also tried to identify Roberson to the responding officer. Witnesses also said Roberson was wearing clothing associated with his security job, although prosecutors later concluded that the markings were not readily visible to Covey from his position.

One witness, Adam Harris, told reporters:

“Everybody was screaming out, ‘He was a security guard.’”

That became one of the most controversial aspects of the case.

The Illinois State Police investigated the shooting, interviewing witnesses and reviewing videos, police communications, photographs and other evidence.

The investigation ultimately involved more than 100 witnesses.

In October 2020, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office announced that Covey would not face criminal charges.

Prosecutors said the evidence was insufficient to support criminal charges and concluded that Covey’s use of deadly force was legally justified under the circumstances as the evidence established them. A separate review by the Illinois State’s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor agreed that criminal charges were not appropriate.

The decision remains controversial because there were competing accounts of the final seconds.

The prosecution’s review found that Covey gave multiple commands before firing and that Roberson turned toward him while still holding a gun.

Witnesses and Roberson’s family, however, disputed aspects of that account, including whether the officer had enough information to know Roberson was a security guard and whether witnesses were warning him before he fired.

There is another important part of the story: the actual gunman who triggered the police response was not killed by police. Four people were wounded in the original shooting, while Roberson the armed security guard who had intervened was the person fatally shot by the responding officer.

Roberson’s family subsequently filed a federal wrongful-death lawsuit against the officer and the Village of Midlothian.

So the documented timeline is:

November 11, 2018: A shooting occurs at Manny’s Blue Room.

Roberson: Works security, confronts and restrains one of the suspected shooters.

Police arrive: Officer Ian Covey encounters Roberson holding a firearm.

Seconds later: Covey fires four shots, killing Roberson.

2019: Investigators release additional video and audio from the scene.

2020: Prosecutors announce that Covey will not face criminal charges.

The case therefore isn’t accurately summarized as simply “a police officer shot a security guard while everyone screamed that he was a security guard.” Those witness accounts are documented, but so is the prosecutor’s finding that Covey gave commands and reasonably believed he was confronting an armed person during a chaotic active-shooter scene.

What isn’t disputed is the outcome:

Jemel Roberson was 26 years old.

He was working security.

He was armed and had confronted a suspected shooter.

A responding police officer shot him.

And the officer was never criminally charged.

His name was Jemel Roberson.

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On May 30, 2011, 22-year-old Raymond Herisse was killed during a chaotic police shooting on Miami Beach during Memorial Day weekend.

Herisse was driving a borrowed Hyundai Sonata along Collins Avenue when police encountered him. According to the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, Herisse had been driving recklessly, struck a Hialeah officer on a bicycle and later nearly struck additional officers and other vehicles while fleeing.

What happened next became one of the most controversial police shootings in Miami’s history.

A total of 12 officers from Miami Beach and Hialeah fired 116 rounds at Herisse’s vehicle.

Herisse was struck 16 times and died behind the wheel.

Four bystanders were also wounded.

Police initially suggested that Herisse may have been firing a weapon.

A handgun was eventually recovered from underneath the driver’s seat, but investigators did not find evidence that Herisse had fired it.

A gunshot-residue examination found that Herisse had not fired a weapon.

Video evidence also complicated the official account.

Surveillance and bystander recordings showed Herisse’s vehicle coming to a stop before the final barrage of gunfire. The Miami Herald later reported that the available videos contradicted parts of the original police narrative.

There was also controversy over what happened to witnesses who recorded the shooting.

Witness Narces Benoit said an officer approached him after he recorded the incident, pointed a gun at him, handcuffed him and damaged his phone. Benoit said he managed to remove the phone’s memory card and hide it in his mouth, preserving the recording.

Miami Beach police disputed parts of Benoit’s account. The department said officers had seized several phones because they believed the recordings could be evidence, and said Benoit’s phone was still functional with only damage to its screen.

The case was investigated for years.

In March 2015, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office announced that none of the 12 officers would face criminal charges. Prosecutors concluded that the officers were legally justified under Florida law because they were responding to what they believed was a dangerous fleeing suspect who posed a threat to officers and the public.

That decision remained controversial because the shooting occurred on a crowded South Beach street and four bystanders were wounded.

The controversy also led Miami Beach police to change its policy regarding officers firing at moving vehicles.

And there was another development that drew attention years later.

In 2017, Miami Beach officer Kenne Espada, one of the officers involved in the shooting, was promoted to sergeant. The department said his actions had been investigated by prosecutors and Internal Affairs, that there had been no finding of misconduct, and that he had successfully tested for promotion.

Herisse’s family later pursued civil litigation. In 2016, his mother reached a settlement with Miami Beach and Hialeah; Miami Beach paid $200,000, while the amount of the Hialeah settlement was not publicly clear in the reporting cited by the Miami Herald.

So the documented record is more complicated than simply saying police “executed” Herisse or that evidence was definitively destroyed.

116 rounds were fired.

Herisse was struck 16 times.

A gun was found in the vehicle, but testing showed he had not fired it.

Four bystanders were wounded.

No officers were criminally charged.

And one officer involved was later promoted.

More than a decade later, the shooting remains a significant case in discussions about police use of force, evidence handling and accountability.

His name was Raymond Herisse.

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| “like a ragdoll” by White deputies over a seatbelt violation — now they’re facing a federal lawsuit.

September 29, 2023. Jacksonville. Le’Keian Woods was 24, a passenger. Deputies said the driver had no seatbelt. They also said Detective Josue Garriga had watched a drug deal at a gas station. Guns came out on a pickup. Woods ran.

He said later he ran because he thought they would shoot him. They tased him. Then the fists, knees, elbows. Video from phones and bodycams showed him on the ground, officers over him, blood on his face.

The mugshot went national: both eyes swollen shut. Lawyers later listed a ruptured kidney, a head injury, nerve damage, lasting trouble with the left eye, migraines.

He picked up a misdemeanor for resisting without violence. The cocaine story from the gas station did not stick as the center of the case the public saw. Sheriff T.K. Waters called the force justified.

The Justice Department said in late 2023 it did not see a prosecutable federal civil-rights case at that time.

October 31, 2024, Woods sued in the Middle District of Florida: Garriga, Hunter Sullivan, Trey McCullough, Beau Daigle. Excessive force. Guns on a seatbelt stop. A face slammed after cuffs, the complaint says.

He asked for money for what the beating left in his body.Garriga was already off the street by then. In July 2024 he pleaded guilty to a separate federal child-sex crime.

In November 2024 a judge gave him 24 years and four months. That case is not the traffic stop. It is the record of the man who helped start the stop.

The photos with this post are the arrest scene, Woods in court stripes, and the swollen face.

The beating itself is on tape. This page is stills. A young Black man left a traffic stop looking like a war. The sheriff said the law allowed it. A federal complaint says it did not.

That fight is the lawsuit — not a new street video from 2026.

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Black people are being bought and sold in Libya right now. The UN calls it a “violent business model.” Amnesty International calls it slavery. The European Union keeps funding the coast guard that sends them back.

In February 2026, the UN Human Rights Office and UNSMIL published a report covering January 2024 to December 2025. The findings: migrants are rounded up by criminal networks with ties to Libyan authorities, detained without due process, and subjected to slavery, torture, forced labor, forced prostitution, and ransom . One Eritrean woman told investigators: “I wish I died. It was a journey of hell. Different men raped me many times. Girls as young as 14 were raped daily” .

The BBC found more than 300 young men from Iraqi Kurdistan kidnapped in Libya in 2025. A militia demanded $5,000 per hostage and threatened to harvest their kidneys if families didn’t pay. Survivors showed scars consistent with surgical incisions. A 16-year-old said he was held in a cell with 178 other people for six months. They never saw the sun. They slept sitting up. One piece of bread per day—only if families paid extra .

In April 2026, more than 100 East African migrants escaped a trafficking camp in Bani Walid. At least 15 were killed during the escape. MSF treated 25 survivors for gunshot wounds and fractures. The migrants had been sold and resold multiple times between Bani Walid and Nesma .

The EU has funded the Libyan Coast Guard since 2015—at least €59 million under one program alone—to intercept migrants at sea and return them to Libya . The UN report calls for a moratorium on all interceptions and returns until human rights safeguards are in place. It also demands “rigorous due diligence” on all funding, training, and equipment to Libyan entities implicated in gross abuses .

This is not a “migrant crisis.” A crisis is a hurricane or a drought. This is a system of abduction, torture, and extortion built into a migration route—and European policy keeps the pipeline full.