CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The sister of a Chicago police officer killed while off-duty 10 years ago is offering her perspective on police, crime and the black community.
Chicago police officer Thomas Wortham IV had returned home a month earlier from his second tour in Iraq with the Army and was killed outside his parents' home in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side as four young men tried to steal his motorcycle.
His father, Thomas Wortham III, a retired cop, was able to fatally shoot one of the armed robbers, Brian Floyd, and wound Floyd's cousin, Marcus Floyd.
Sandra Wortham, the slain officer’s sister, tells WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya that her family would never be the same.
"Having lost him changed every single thing about our lives," she said.
Amid the current debate about “defunding” the police, Sandra Wortham, a lawyer, says police and the community cannot afford to be divided. She adds that the two opposing points of view aren’t necessarily wrong.
"It can be true that there’s work to be done with law enforcement. It can also be true that we need law enforcement,” she said.
Wortham said she is not an "apologist" for police and, as a black woman, is not immune to what other black people experience. But she said most officers—no matter what their color—do a good job.
“The problem with our national conversation is we force people into choosing a side,” she said.
Sandra Wortham says one way to get a handle on crime is to have parents do their jobs and parent their children.
"People don’t become perpetrators of crime on accident. Sometimes, it’s a lack of direction,” she said.
Three men — Paris McGee, Toyious Taylor and Marcus Floyd — were convicted of murdering Thomas Wortham IV and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.
Last year, an Illinois appeals court overturned Marcus Floyd's conviction on the basis of his possible fitness to stand trial. He is said to have had amnesia to the events of that night in May 2010 after being shot several times by Thomas Wortham III.
A fitness review has not yet been argued and is winding its way through the court system.