The head of Chicago’s police department is urging Canada’s public safety minister to deny a former Toronto librarian’s assistant entry to Canada because he shot an officer in 1969.
Gary Freeman, 61, formerly known as Joseph Pannell, pleaded guilty in 2008 to shooting Chicago police officer Terrence Knox in the arm when Knox was attempting to arrest him.
Freeman is black and Knox is white, and their confrontation was racially charged from the beginning.
Freeman has said he felt threatened by Knox and that the officer stopped him for no reason. Shortly after the shooting, Freeman jumped bail and fled to Canada, where he lived for more than three decades, raising a family under a new name.
He was extradited to Chicago and pleaded guilty to aggravated battery in 2008.
Freeman spent 30 days in jail and, as part of his plea agreement, pledged $250,000 to a fund for police officers’ orphans and widows.
He has since been living with his elderly mother and stepfather in Washington, after applying for a temporary resident’s permit to re-enter Canada.
But Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis said he strongly opposes permission being granted for Freeman to rejoin his family in the GTA.
“Mr. Parnell never afforded Officer Knox any compassion,” Weis wrote in a letter to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. “He had ample opportunity to bring his case forward in a court of law and chose to ignore the judicial process in the United States. He never took responsibility for his actions until 2008, when required as part of a plea agreement.”
Among those supporting Freeman’s efforts to re-enter Canada are MP Olivia Chow and the Toronto Public Library Workers Union. They say that Freeman lived an exemplary life in Canada.
The shooting took place when Knox was 21 and Freeman was 19. They both argue they suffered more from their brief encounter in 1969.
Knox now has cancer, which he blames on blood transfusions following the shooting.
In his website, Freeman’s supporters argue he jumped bail because he believed his human rights would continue to be violated.
“Terrence Knox, a white Chicago police officer, sustained a wound to his arm,” the site states.
“Joseph Pannell, a 19-year-old African-American, had his life destroyed. His basic human right of life and liberty was violated on the streets of Chicago in 1969.”
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