By Angela Rozas
The Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — The death of a West Side man, who authorities said swallowed a bag of drugs that blocked his airway during a police chase, was ruled an accident, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said Sunday.
Tony Green, 22, of the 600 block of North Mayfield Avenue was running from Chicago police officers near Pulaski Road and Van Buren Street Saturday morning and swallowed a bag of what was described as a white substance before having a seizure, a law enforcement source said. Green was pronounced dead in Mt. Sinai Hospital.
An autopsy Sunday determined he died of asphyxia and “aspiration of a foreign body,” which means he inhaled something into his lungs or trachea, blocking his breathing, a medical examiner’s spokesman said.
Witnesses said Saturday they saw Green running from police, and then saw officers grab him, throw him up against a fence and handcuff him before putting him into a squad car. Police drove the squad car a short way before stopping and taking Green out of the car again. Minutes later, an ambulance arrived and took Green, who was not moving, to the hospital.
On Sunday, people who said they witnessed the chase offered different accounts. One man, who declined to be identified, said he saw Green run from police and that he was carrying two bags of rock cocaine in his mouth. He said the officer who stopped him ordered him to swallow the drug, and Green then choked on it.
But another in the neighborhood, who also declined to be identified, said police officers did not do anything wrong and were only trying to do their jobs by catching a suspected drug dealer.
Green had two previous arrests for drug possession, according to court records.
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