Some 150 men, women and children marched through Corryville on Tuesday, determined that the officers who fatally shot a mentally ill man armed with a brick be disciplined.
''We must condemn this death as untimely and unwarranted, because he was fleeing the police and armed only with a brick,'' the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth told the crowd gathered at 237 E. Rochelle, near the yard where Lorenzo Collins was shot Feb. 23.
The march stretched from University Hospital, where Mr. Collins was being held for a mental evaluation after he was arrested on theft charges in Springdale.
The 25-year-old Avondale man was shot three times by Cincinnati Police Officer Douglas Depodesta and University of Cincinnati Officer John E. Engel, who pursued him to the yard and yelled repeatedly for him to drop the brick. Officers on the scene said he charged at the officers. Mr. Collins died Friday; his services are tonight at New St. Paul Baptist Church in the West End.
''Was this young man sitting on a pile of bricks?'' asked the Rev. Damon Lynch III, pastor at New Prospect Baptist Church in Over-the-Rhine. ''If he threw the brick, was he going to reload?''
The Rev. Mr. Lynch drew shouted responses from the crowd as he listed a number of recent cases involving Cincinnati police, including a jaywalking ticket written to a blind man and the arrest of a woman who put money in two parking meters. He compared the Collins shooting to incidents when livestock escaped near the packing plants on Spring Grove Avenue, when officers used tranquilizer darts and nets, but not pistols.
''They knew his home. They knew where he lived. They could have backed up,'' he said to murmurs of agreement from members of the Urban League of Greater Cincinnati, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Greater Cincinnati African-
American Chamber of Commerce and others.
Police facing off with Mr. Collins called for an electric stun gun, but shot Mr. Collins before it arrived. A city police training officer, Sgt. Mike Gardner, has said that officers in similar situations must weigh the risk that a suspect may harm someone if he escapes.
City Safety Director Kent A. Ryan said it was too early to tell whether the officers acted properly or should be disciplined. ''We have two investigations in progress, criminal and internal.
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FATAL SHOOTING CONCERNS COMMUNITY March 2, 1997
PROBE: POLICE FIRED FOUR SHOTS AT MAN WITH BRICK Feb. 25, 1997
MAN SHOT BY POLICE AFTER CHASE Feb. 24, 1997
