By Michelle McIntosh
The Scene staff
The family of a Forest Park honor student shot and killed by police in April gave an update on his case at a meeting on campus recently.
Toni Taylor, mother of the late Cary Ball Jr., said family members have participated in a protest in front of the Civil Courts Building and circulated petitions calling for the arrest of the two police officers involved in the shooting.
“I just don’t want this to happen to any other kid or for another family to have to go through this,” Taylor said. “I want those officers arrested, charged and convicted.”
The family also has hired former St. Louis mayor Freeman Bosley Jr. as their lawyer in a civil wrongful-death lawsuit filed against the St. Louis Police Department, the individual officers involved in the case and the city’s Board of Police Commisioners.
“Excessive force on any level is unacceptable,” Bosley was quoted as saying in the St. Louis American newspaper. “This chase should never have started in the first place, and Mr. Ball should certainly not be dead today. This has to stop.”
Family members at the Forest Park meeting also talked about the importance of stopping gun violence in the community.
“We have to get out of the state of, ‘I’m not snitching,’” said Carlos Ball, Cary’s brother, referring to the fact that many people fail to alert authorities about illegal activity.
Cary Ball, 25, had served time in a Florida prison for robbery, but he tried to turn his life around by enrolling in college in the summer of 2012. He was a human services major at Forest Park with a 3.86 grade-point average.
Ball was killed on April 24 in downtown St. Louis.
Officers reported that he led them on a high-speed chase, driving in an erratic manner; that his vehicle struck a parked vehicle when they tried to pull him over later that evening; and that he exited the vehicle, prompting police to pursue him on foot.
“The suspect produced a gun and pointed the weapon at the officers,” according to a police case summary. “Officers drew their department-issued weapons and ordered the suspect to drop his weapon. The suspect refused, and the officers, fearing for their immediate safety, discharged shots, striking the suspect in his torso and arms.”
Human Services coordinator Angela Roffle organized the meeting on June 12 in Forest Park’s Café East. About 25 people attended.
Roffle had Cary Ball in one of her classes.
“He was a great guy,” she said. “Cary will never be forgotten and will remain in our hearts. I miss him daily.”
Other speakers at the meeting included representatives of the Human Services department, the Brother to Brother Club, Grass Roots Organization, the SWIM ministry and other groups. Several focused on the importance of stopping gun violence.
“If we take our neighborhoods back one at a time, we will get our children back one at a time,” said Brenda Ingram, a former Forest Park student.