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No one was walking in middle of street, witness says

Posted October 15, 2007 11:00 pm

Frank Radosevich II

Protesters on Monday sharply criticized police once again for ticketing students on their way from school as well as for spreading what they claimed was false information.

"For some reason the middle of the street had come up as a changed fact in this matter. Students were walking on the side of the street or they were walking on the sidewalks when sidewalks became available," said Rita Ali, who witnessed the citations issued in the 2100 block of West Wiswall Street, during a Monday afternoon news conference. "Read my lips: The students were not walking in the middle of the street."

The 4 p.m. meeting with reporters came on the heels of a citizens' protest Saturday outside the Peoria Police Department, after officers, acting on a series of complaints, issued 32 city ordinance violations Sept. 28 to students of Manual and Woodruff high schools for - they say - walking down the middle of the street.

Ali, executive director of diversity at Illinois Central College, said when she first heard from police days after the incident, "there was never an issue that the students were walking in the middle of the street." That changed Friday, she said, after Police Chief Steven Settingsgaard stated the youths were ticketed for walking down the center of the road.

"I know that there are students that walk in the middle of the street sometimes and are hesitant to get out of the way," Ali said. "We are not defending that kind of behavior. But I'm an eyewitness to a situation where students were not walking in the middle of the street and they were punished for something they did not do."

The group also believes the ordinance violations were aimed solely at students in South Peoria and the North Valley - poorer and predominantly black neighborhoods - while police ignored similar problems farther north at Peoria and Richwoods high schools.

"Quite frankly, there isn't a good reason for me not to use the race card in this case," said Don Jackson, a local attorney and the president of the local and state chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, addressing the District 150 School Board later Monday.

"By doing what's been been done to the shildren at Manual … they're not either being truthful nor are they showing integrity."

At the news conference, one father said the same thing happens around the city's other public high schools, Richwoods and Peoria.

"The city does not have adequate places for the students to walk. They have to walk in the streets," said Steve Collins, the father of 17-year-old Manual senior Stephanie Collins, who was ticketed. "This goes on in other areas of the city. Why all of a sudden do they like to target this area?"

Out of town on business, Settingsgaard was unavailable for comment. On Friday, though, he said officers issued the citations for walking down the middle of the street "for lengths of distance and many times two, three, four, five kids abreast."

Avery McShan, one of the students ticketed on Wiswall, said students were in the street because the road lacked sidewalks and parked cars prevented them from using the street's shoulder.

"When we come to the second block (of Wiswall), it's packed full of cars and we don't like walking through people's grass so we walk everyday up and down the street," the 15-year-old Manual freshman said as he stood before a bank of television cameras and reporters. "The police never said nothing about it until now."

When reached earlier Monday, police spokeswoman Ann Ruggles said the department made its position on the controversy clear Friday during its own news conference and declined to comment further.

Frank Radosevich II can be reached at (309) 686-3142 or fradosevich@pjstar.com. Clare Jellick contributed to this story.

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