TLC’s Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins Says Mentally Ill Cousin Was Shot Dead by Police
TLC singer Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins is calling for justice for her mentally ill cousin, Eddie Russell Jr., who was shot and killed by Illinois police last Wednesday.
Watkins shared a series of tweets that she also screen grabbed and posted to her Instagram account Sunday, accusing the police of using “beyond excessive force” by shooting Russell Jr. 18 times as he stepped outside his home.
“My Cousin Was Shot 18 Times Including the Face and Back of His Head!” she captioned her post. “He Harmed NO ONE EVER! He Had Mental Health Issues AND THE COPS KNEW THAT! Anything he’s ever Done Was minor and NON VIOLENT! Eddie Russell Jr -A Human-Being -A Son-Brother-Friend-Nephew – Cousin-HUMAN!”
A press release from the Peoria Police Department states that police followed Russell Jr. to a residential neighborhood after they identified him as a suspect in a bank robbery. After tracking him down at his home, officers attempted to communicate with Russell Jr. for over two hours before finally calling in a special response team, who asked his mother to help draw him out of the home.
“The cops told his mother to call him out on a bullhorn USED her saying ‘WE WILL GIVE HIM THE HELP HE NEEDS’ and He Came Out Because He Heard His Mother and They used beyond excessive force to gun him down also with heavy artillery used in warfare!” Watkins wrote. “18 times? Shot eighteen times?? IF THEIR GOING ON WHAT HES HOLDING AT HTE BANK THAT ISN’T A GUN!”
In the police report, which was shared to Facebook, the police claimed that Russell Jr. was “armed” when he “emerged from his home advancing towards officers with a handgun.”
“The handgun Russell was armed with during the shooting incident matches the description of the gun he used during the Bank Robbery at First Mid-Illinois Bank & Trust,” the statement reads. “The handgun was recovered at the scene of the shooting incident.”
Russell Jr. was pronounced dead at the scene of the crime. He was 25.
According to the New York Daily News, he had just been released from a mental health facility shortly before he was killed, and his father had tried to ask police to let him inside to talk to his son, but he was told no.
“They could have tased him from 30 feet away,” father Eddie Russell, Sr., told the Peoria Journal Star hours after the shooting. “But they grabbed him out of the house. I don’t care what they say.”
On Twitter, Watkins railed against the police and the changing narrative that was being spread in the news. “I’ve watched this story change so many times right before my eyes!” she tweeted. “Jr. Was a sweet harmless young man with mental issues he couldn’t help.”
The six police officers involved in the shooting are currently on critical incident leave.