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| Inmate, 17, slain in Cook County Jail |
| By Chicago Tribune |
| Published: 11/19/2004 |
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A suburban teenager awaiting trial in Cook County (Ill.) Jail was stabbed to death late Wednesday in a maximum-security wing set aside for young inmates taking high-school equivalency courses. Charges were pending Thursday in the slaying of Jamar Rodgers, 17, who had been charged with a carjacking using a fake gun. But questions remain about why Rodgers, of the 2100 block of West 119th Street in Blue Island, was being housed in a maximum-security tier. "There was no reason for a young black male to be placed in detention with hardened criminals," said his stepfather, Daryl Stafford. Cook County sheriff's officials said Rodgers' arrest and charges, including unlawful restraint, violated his parole on a juvenile case. Besides the parole violation, the carjacking was a violent crime that alone could have qualified Rodgers for such confinement, said Bill Cunningham, a Cook County sheriff's spokesman. Tom Stanton, a spokesman for the Cook County state's attorney's office, said prosecutors' records showed no parole violations were logged at the Markham courthouse, where the carjacking case was charged. The sheriff's office decides where inmates are housed, said Cook County public defender Connie Jordan. Jordan said she learned Rodgers was in maximum security a month ago and that he did not communicate to her that he feared for his safety. Cunningham said the fatal incident started as a dispute in the dayroom between Rodgers, who had been in jail since July 2, and another inmate and in the presence of several dozen inmates. It then escalated in a shower area out of the view of jail officers. Rodgers suffered a fatal stab wound between the shoulder blades after a third inmate joined the fight, Cunningham said. The incident remained under investigation late Thursday as sheriff's officers questioned two inmates and interviewed a number of witnesses. |
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