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LOCAL News :: Crime & Police

Funeral/Followup at U.S. Attorney for Activist May Molina, Dead in Police Custody

Funeral Arrangements for May Molina:

Wednesday, June 2: Funeral, 9:45 a.m. from Casey-Laskowski & Sons Funeral Home, 4540-50 W. Diversey Ave., to St. Genevieve Church, Mass 10:30 a.m. Interment Mount Olive.

Wednesday, June 2: Following the Wednesday funeral and burial, activists and family will proceed to the US Attorney General's office at 219 S. Dearborn, ETA 2:00 PM to deliver a letter demanding a full independent investigation.
NOTE TIME at U.S. Attorney's Office: 2PM SHARP

Funeral/Follow-Up Action at U.S. Attorney's Office for Police Accountability Activist May Molina

Wednesday, June 2: Funeral, 9:45 a.m. from Casey-Laskowski & Sons Funeral Home, 4540-50 W. Diversey Ave., to St. Genevieve Church, Mass 10:30 a.m. Interment Mount Olive.

Wednesday, June 2: Following the Wednesday funeral and burial, activists and family will proceed to the US Attorney General's office at 219 S. Dearborn, ETA 2:00 PM to deliver a letter demanding a full independent investigation.

Thursday, June 3: Generation Y Youth to March to End Police Brutality and Racial Profiling; 5:30 PM; Converge at Chicago Police Headquarters, 3510 S. Michigan -- March will continue to 15th and Indiana. Activists in support of May Molina will deliver a letter to Mayor Daley regarding the situation.

Friday, June 4: March against police torture at home and abroad, 4PM, Federal Plaza, Jackson and Dearborn, organized by Evg. C. Scott (Lil' Scotty) and the Enough is Enough Campaign.

Sunday: A group of family members and community supporters will meet at 3 pm. at the offices of May's group to discuss next steps in the campaign to win justice for May Molina.

The family of May Molina (Ortiz) is in desperate need of funds to pay for funeral expenses. Make the checks payable to Marisol Allende and send c/o April Ortiz to PO Box 412004, Chicago, IL 60654.

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May Molina, age 55, loving mother of Salvador Sr., Michael, and April Ortiz and Anthony DeJesus, dearest grandmother of Salvador D. Ortiz Jr., Jose Torres, Jason Dalgado, Elias D. and Gloria Gonzalez, dear mother-in-law of Shannon Guzman, fond sister, aunt, and friend of many. Funeral Wednesday, 9:45 a.m. from Casey-Laskowski & Sons Funeral Home, 4540-50 W. Diversey Ave., to St. Genevieve Church, Mass 10:30 a.m. Interment Mount Olive. Visitation Tuesday, 2 to 9 p.m. Co-founder of Comite Exigimos Justicia and Families of the Wrongfully Convicted. 773-777-6300.

Published in the Chicago Sun-Times on 5/31/2004.

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Activist's death sparking protest
Friends question drug allegations

By Carlos Sadovi, Tribune staff reporter. Published May 30, 2004

A meeting between police officials and supporters of a local activist who died of undetermined causes while in police custody was canceled Friday after the two sides could not agree on whether to meet in public or private.

More than a dozen supporters of May Molina, 55, who died Wednesday, confronted officials from the Office of Professional Standards, the group looking into her death, angrily demanding that the meeting be held in public.

They also called for the case to be turned over to the U.S. attorney's office or an independent commission.

"This is too big for you. Write a letter to the U.S. attorney's office," said Aaron Patterson, a lead protester who was one of the Death Row inmates pardoned by former Gov. George Ryan.

Lori Lightfoot, chief administrator of the Office of Professional Standards, refused to meet with protesters. She told them to go to the U.S. attorney and the FBI to request an investigation.

"We will not turn this into a circus. I have offered to meet with you," Lightfoot said. "You don't want the terms of the deal."

Molina founded a group called Families of the Wrongfully Convicted. She was arrested Monday at her home, where police said they found more than 80 tinfoil packets of heroin.

An autopsy found that she had ingested six tinfoil packets.

The packets, the size of a fingertip, were found in her esophagus, stomach and small intestine, according to a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner's office.

A ruling on the cause of death will be made after the results of a toxicology exam are available, the spokesman said. Police are also awaiting test results to determine if the packets found inside the woman contained drugs.

The packets in her body were similar in size and packaging to the heroin packets found in her home, police spokesman Patrick Camden said.

In 1991, Molina was sentenced to 3 years in prison on a drug conviction.

Molina, who was in a wheelchair, had diabetes, asthma and a thyroid condition.

Friday's confrontation between the protesters and police capped nearly a week of sparring between the groups. On Thursday, a meeting with the Office of Professional Standards was canceled after protesters shouted down police officials.

Patterson, who spent 17 years on the state's Death Row for murder before he was pardoned last year, was arrested and spent a night in jail Wednesday evening.

Patterson was charged with a misdemeanor count of reckless conduct after a protest outside Belmont Area headquarters, where Molina had died.

Patterson was arrested after he refused to stop banging on windows at the police station, police said.

Patterson said he was wrongfully arrested.

Alexander Hauad, Molina's nephew, disputed that she had drugs in her home and said he did not believe that drugs were found inside her body.

Hauad said that she had been held for nearly two days, and he questioned how the drugs could have stayed in her system.

"We know that May Molina did not have drugs in her system and in her house," he said.

Police dispute claims that Molina or her attorney asked for medical attention.

But because of her age and her use of a wheelchair, her health was at greater risk than that of the average person held in a lockup, said Charles Fasano, director of the prisons and jails program at the John Howard Association in Chicago.

If police knew about her medical problems, they should have kept a closer watch on her in the holding cell, Fasano said. Police said they looked in on her every 15 minutes.

"When people are taken into custody, they're very frequently in bad shape. They may have medical problems. They may be traumatized. They may be intoxicated," he said. "They may be at risk for serious injury or death."

Legal standards detail how lockups should be run, Fasano said. State officials used to require annual inspections of all lockups and prisons in all 102 counties in the state, he said.

Two people in the Illinois Department of Corrections are charged with evaluating if people are treated fairly in lockups, although the inspections are conducted only if they are requested by county agencies, said Sergio Molina, a spokesman for the agency. He is not related to May Molina.

May Molina's estate may have a tough time trying to make a case against the city, according to the Jury Verdict Reporter, which tracks the outcomes of jury trials.

In 1997, a Lake County jury awarded the estate of Victor Connell $459,455 after the man died in the county's jail of a cocaine overdose complicated by undiagnosed diabetes. The jury concluded a doctor with the jail's medical unit failed to provide care to the man even after determining that his vital signs were abnormal.

But a jury in 1996 found the Village of Mount Prospect not guilty after Edward Fitzgibbons died of a diabetic attack after he chose not to take his insulin shot while he was being held on a shoplifting charge. The estate had sought $1 million, but the jury ruled Fitzgibbons was responsible for declining to have the injection.

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
 
 

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