A public forum scheduled for Monday and a memorial march Tuesday will address the community's concerns about the fatal shooting of an Avondale man who confronted police with a brick.
Lorenzo Collins, shot three times Feb. 23 by Cincinnati police in a stand-off after he refused to drop a brick, died Friday at University Hospital.
The local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), with the Baptist Ministers Conference, called the meeting for 7 p.m. Monday at the Tom A. Moore Building, 3457 Montgomery Road.
The memorial march will begin at noon Tuesday at University Hospital, winding from there to 237 E. Rochelle Ave., the
Corryville yard where Mr. Collins, 25, was shot.
The forum is necessary to ''fill that void of anxiety'' that the community felt after Mr. Collins' shooting, said Milton Hinton, local NAACP president. In telephone calls to the NAACP's office, many people expressed ''outrage and an inability to comprehend why a man with a brick would be killed.''
''We want to provide a forum for people to express themselves ... and to show the community that we are concerned,'' Mr. Hinton said.
The memorial march, sponsored by members of the Baptist Ministers Conference, will include a litany of other cases when the group believes police should not have fired their guns, said the Rev. Damon Lynch Jr., president of the ministers group.
''We are incensed,'' the Rev. Mr. Lynch said. ''All too often, this has happened ... We will march at a death cadence to demonstrate the gravity of the situation.''
The Rev. Mr. Lynch said the group met late Friday with city safety director Kent A. Ryan, just hours after Mr. Collins died at 1:07 p.m. Mr. Ryan, he said, ''asked us for our unconditional trust that he will do his best.'' Conference members agreed but said they will keep up public pressure and scrutiny of the case.
The Hamilton County coroner's office will conduct an autopsy of Mr. Collins, but Cincinnati Police Chief Michael Snowden said the continuing investigation otherwise will be unchanged.
Mr. Collins was injured too severely to talk to police before he died, police said.
The Cincinnati Police homicide and internal investigation units and the city's independent Office of Contract Compliance and Investigation all are investigating.
Mr. Collins was arrested in Springdale on Feb. 22 for theft and was taken to the hospital for a mental evaluation after he showed bizarre behavior during questioning, police said. It's still unclear how Mr. Collins got out of the locked psychiatric unit and fled through the lobby.
According to police, witnesses and recordings of radio transmissions, Mr. Collins was 6 to 8 feet from Cincinnati Police Officer Douglas Depodesta and University of Cincinnati Officer John E. Engel, waving a brick in one hand, when he was shot.
Christine Wolff contributed to this report.
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PROBE: POLICE FIRED FOUR SHOTS AT MAN WITH BRICK Feb. 25, 1997
MAN SHOT BY POLICE AFTER CHASE Feb. 24, 1997
