NEW YORK (CBS) ― The Reverend Al Sharpton is demanding answers after a deadly case of road rage involving an off-duty police officer.

Jayson Tirado was killed last week when officer Sean Sawyer, by his own admission, shot at Tirado’s car at 117th street and First Ave. while their two cars were jockeying for position – an alleged case of road rage by a New York City police officer.

The victim’s fiancée, Lisa Claudio and their four-year-old daughter Jaylene attended Rev. Sharpton’s weekly radio address at his Harlem headquarters.

“You just cannot arbitrarily kill people,” said Sharpton. “This madness must stop.”

Many in the victim’s family and Rev. Sharpton, wonder why officer Sawyer was not arrested for leaving the scene of the shooting for 19 hours.

“If evidence was tampered with, and time was used to change anything, then you are involved in obstruction of justice,” added Sharpton.

There is no law about leaving the scene of a shooting, but as Police Commissioner Kelly has noted, there are police rules about what officers must do after they fire their guns.

“There is an affirmative responsibility on the part of any officer who uses his or her weapon to stay on the scene and immediately notify the department,” said Kelly. “[And] to render aid to anyone who may need it.”

Before going to Tirado’s wake, Rev. Sharpton said he welcomed Latino victims and hoped they could unite with the black community.

Officer Sawyer has been suspended without pay, while a grand jury investigates possible charges.

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http://wcbstv.com/video/?id=104828@wcbs.dayport.com

Jayson Tirado was gunned down following an apparent incident of road rage.

CBS

Jayson Tirado was gunned down following an apparent incident of road rage. CBS

Reverend Al Sharpton is demanding answers after a deadly case of road rage involving an off duty police officer. (file)

CBS

Al Sharpton and New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly pledge to work against police brutality. Kelly spoke at a rally organized by Sharpton’s National Action Network. CBS2’s Deborah Garcia reports.

The Reverend Al Sharpton was in Savannah Thursday night - helping raise money for the family of a man shot and killed by police.

He spoke at a fundraiser for 22-year-old David Willis’ three children, one of them unborn.

Willis was fatally shot by officer Kevin Mckoon nearly two weeks ago.

Police say Willis was pulled over for a traffic stop, when he tried to run the officer over.

The Second St. John Missionary Baptist Church  was filled to capacity, an hour before Reverend Al Sharpton arrived.

Organizers say it wasn’t a rally to say who’s wrong or right, but a way to reach out to Willis’ family and heal.

The attached link  is a portion of Reverend Sharpton’s speech. 

http://www.wsav.com/midatlantic/sav/news.apx.-content-articles-SAV-2007-08-31-0025.html

Al Sharpton is making another trip to west Memphis Arkansas this weekend to attend a ceremony for the 12 year old boy shot and killed by a West Memphis Police officer. Sharpton first came to town for the funeral of Deaunta Farrow in July. Farrow was shot and killed in June at an apartment complex in West Memphis. Two West Memphis police officers were undercover in the area due to a high number of burglaries. Farrow was with his cousin, police say he was carrying what looked like a real gun. West Memphis Police officer Erik Sammis says he asked the child to drop the gun, when he didn’t he fired the shot that killed Farrow. It turned out the gun the 12 year old had was fake. The incident is being investigated by the FBI, Arkansas State Police and 2 special prosecutors. Farrow’s mother has filed a multi-million dollar wrongful death lawsuit. Sharpton will be in West Memphis Saturday for the re-naming of a street in honor of the young boy. Sunday, he’ll preach at the New Salem Baptist Church in east Memphis.

The Rev. Al Sharpton plans to open a branch of his National Action Network in Chicago to target what he calls chronic police misconduct and a lack of political accountability. It’s also the home turf of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, but the New York-based Sharpton says he sees no conflict.

“There’s this outrageous notion that one black with a national profile and another black, (we’re) going to fight if we’re in the same town,” Sharpton said at a news conference Wednesday. “Every national civil rights group has a branch in New York — NAACP, Urban League, Rainbow/PUSH, all of them. And I don’t have a problem with anybody in town.

“So what is the controversy about me coming to Chicago?” the 52-year-old asked.

For now, Jackson isn’t commenting on Sharpton’s move, a Rainbow/PUSH Coalition spokeswoman told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Jackson, 65, a one-time presidential candidate liked Sharpton, marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and helped mentor Sharpton in his early career. More recently, the two men worked together to protest radio personality Don Imus, who was fired from CBS after he used racist and sexist language about female college athletes on the air.

Jackson has told the Chicago Sun-Times that he will continue to work with Sharpton, but that Sharpton’s mission replicates what Jackson and other civil rights groups are already doing in Chicago.

The Chicago office would be one of 36 nationwide run by Sharpton’s group. It would be headed by Jeri Wright, whose high-profile father, Dr. Jeremiah Wright, is pastor of Sen. Barack Obama’s church, Sharpton said Wednesday.

Sharpton, who has crusaded against police brutality since the 1990s, said local civil rights leaders have failed to hold Mayor Richard M. Daley accountable for police torture.

The mayor and police department have been under scrutiny after several highly publicized recent incidents involving off-duty officers, including the alleged beating of a female bartender caught on video.

The department has been accused of brutality since the 1970s, when investigators say a group of detectives and their commander tortured dozens of suspects, most of them black, into confessing to crimes. Prosecutors now say those misconduct cases are too old to pursue.

Daley spokeswoman Jacquelyn Heard said the mayor and Sharpton spoke by phone Wednesday and that the men have many of the same aims, including justice and addressing police misconduct.