Outraged community residents threw down the gauntlet against business as usual in Thursday’s police board meeting, leaving their seats to surround board members and command level police brass and demand meaningful steps in the investigation of the death in police custody of May Molina. Police say they found Molina dead or near death in a police cell at Belmont and Western Wednesday morning. Her supporters have accused police of being responsible for her death.

The protesters’ action at Thursday’s police board meeting prompted police officials to offer the protesters an unprecedented Friday morning meeting with the head of the Chicago Police Department’s Office of Professional Standards. The meeting is scheduled for 9AM on Friday, May 28 with Lori Lightfoot, chief administrator of the Office of Professional Standards, at her 12th floor office, at 10 W. 35th St., at 35th and State Street. Molina’s supporters are urging members of the public to attend the meeting.

More than 150 of Molina’s friends, supporters and family members attended the Thursday police board meeting, including her two small grandchildren and two of her nieces.

Her nieces, both of whom are studying to be lawyers, said the death of their aunt in police custody early Wednesday morning had seriously shaken their faith in the criminal justice system. “If you knew my aunt, you know these things [the police are] saying don’t make sense,” said her niece Maritza Perez. Many speakers at the police board meeting demanded an independent investigation and autopsy in the case, charging that it was impossible to trust the police to conduct an honest investigation.

Molina was arrested Monday night at her home near Addison and Halsted on allegations of heroin possession, a charge those who know her find highly suspicious. She was taken to the notorious Town Hall police district, and later transferred to area headquarters at Belmont and Western. Family members went repeatedly to both stations to plead with police to allow her to take her medicine. The wheelchair bound 55-year-old activist had a range of health problems, including diabetes. Her attorney, Jerry Bischoff, visited her Tuesday afternoon in jail and said he told police she was very ill, needed her medication and needed to be taken to the hospital. Police deny that Molina, her relatives or her attorney asked that she be allowed to take her medication or be taken to a hospital.

Wednesday night, the County coroner’s office leaked a report to police that Molina had been found to have six packs of heroin in her esophagus. Family and supporters scoffed at that allegation, wondering if it was plausible to believe that Molina had not swallowed over the course of more than 28 hours in police custody, leaving the heroin lodged in her throat.

“We want answers,” Rev. Walter Coleman told police board members Thursday night. “This woman was deeply loved and respected in the community. It is unprofessional – it is wrong -- for the police or the coroner to leak unsubstantiated information and engage in a smear campaign against this woman when we already know there has been serious police wrongdoing in this case. The police have no credibility in the community.”

“My mother died twenty years ago, and May Molina was the only mother I’ve ever known,” said Maribel Shattini. “We demand an independent investigation into her death, because frankly, we don’t trust the police.”

Molina was widely respected for her work on behalf of the wrongfully convicted, including her son Salvatore Ortiz, who she and supporters charge was wrongfully convicted of a homicide by west side cops and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. Ortiz has served ten years of a 47 year sentence, and the family was hopeful that recent legal progress in the case might push forward efforts to win his freedom. She had opened an office on the west side recently along with other police accountability activists as part of a broad campaign to step up the campaign to draw public attention to police misconduct and wrongful convictions.

After people in the meeting engulfed board members and top brass, chanting “the people, united, will never be defeated,” police officials hastily offered to set up a meeting with the Office of Professional Standards Friday morning. The crowd surrounded board members and police brass as former death row inmate Aaron Patterson rose to speak, saying part of the problem was the lack of closeness between board members and the public. “These meetings are too informal,” said Patterson, who then asked Molina’s supporters to join him in moving closer to the board members and top police brass, who were seated at a long table at the head of the room. Molina’s advocates and relatives rose to their feet and joined Patterson in surrounding the board members, police superintendent Phil Cline and police department corporation counsel Sheri Mecklenburg.

Police staff stood between the protesters and police officials, and several minutes later police spokesperson Pat Camden stepped forward with the offer to schedule a meeting between Molina’s advocates and the OPS chief Friday morning.

Molina’s funeral is scheduled for Tuesday at 2PM.