URBANA — The teen charged with resisting arrest in the incident that left his friend dead at the hands of a police officer is due back in court in two months.
Alfred Ivy, the Urbana attorney for Jeshaun Manning-Carter, 16, of Champaign, on Wednesday asked Judge Heidi Ladd to continue his client’s juvenile delinquency case again.
State’s Attorney Julia Rietz had no objection, noting that Manning-Carter had some “issues” with school attendance which she was hopeful would be resolved by the April 13 court hearing. She said she was pleased that he and his mother, Laura Manning, plan to take part in the Parenting With Love and Limits family-oriented counseling program starting next week.
Ivy, Rietz, the youth, and his mother huddled in the courtroom for a conversation before the judge took the bench.
Manning-Carter was in the backyard of a home at 906 W. Vine St., C, on Oct. 9 when his friend Kiwane Carrington, 15, also of Champaign, was fatally shot by Champaign police officer Dan Norbits, as Norbits and Police Chief R.T. Finney responded to what they were told was a burglary in progress.
The police have said that both teens resisted their commands to get on the ground. An inquest into Mr. Carrington’s death is scheduled for Thursday.
Several supporters of Manning-Carter crowded the hall outside the courtroom where his hearing was going on. Only members of the immediate family, caseworkers, and the news media are typically allowed to sit in on juvenile delinquency hearings.
At a news conference before the hearing, some of those supporters renewed their call for Rietz to dismiss the charges against Manning-Carter.
Carol Ammons of the Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice said that group and others working with it have collected 1,766 signatures on petitions which they have forwarded to Rietz asking her to drop the charges so that Manning-Carter “is free to testify.”
“We really need to know what he saw,” Ammons said, adding that community involvement “is critical in getting justice in any case.”
Rietz reiterated that her prosecutorial decisions would not be driven by petitions.
“If they really want to help him they could show up at READY (school) and encourage him and the other students to go to school every day or offer to help tutor them so that they pass all of their classes other than spending their time collecting signatures on a petition,” Rietz said.
Rietz said she’ll be watching to see what kind of progress Manning-Carter is making in the alternative school in Champaign. He was referred to READY in December because of poor attendance at Central High School, Rietz said.
An internal investigation of the entire incident is ongoing in Champaign, where Norbits remains off the street but is doing administrative duties in the station.
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services