Marcus Smith arrived at the Pulaski Orange Line Station on Chicago’s Southwest Side at about noon. It was Thanksgiving Day, 2017, and his mother was waiting for him in a parked car beneath the tracks.
As the roar of the departing train echoed off the station’s worn concrete walls, he spotted his mom’s red Honda sedan.
“I didn’t feel unsafe when I pulled up,” said Marcus’ mom, Jacquelyn Smith. “I pulled up because I said, ‘What better place to be parked than next to a cop car?’”
An officer in that police car spotted Marcus, too.
It happened fast. Marcus saw a gun in the officer’s hand. He instinctively moved to get out of the way, assuming the officer had seen something behind him.
“I’m thinking, okay, I just got bad luck here, I’m literally walking into the middle of the crossfire,” Marcus said.
He wasn’t. Marcus quickly realized the officer, Eric Puszkiewicz, was pointing the gun at him. Jacquelyn, helpless as she watched from the driver’s seat, said she knew Puszkiewicz was a trigger pull away from killing her son.
“I knew any kind of movement, it was over,” Jacquelyn said…
Eric L. Piza, Ph.D. 