Editorial: The Chicago police shooting death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo and a city in waiting

As a city, we anxiously await the public release of video footage from the March 29 police shooting of Adam Toledo. Tragically, we have been here before. We will want a step-by-step, second-by-second accounting of what happened to better understand what unfolded between a police officer and a 13-year-old boy in a Little Village alley.

We will want answers. We might not get them.

Prosecutors on Saturday described in some detail what they believe happened on that Monday around 2:30 a.m. Toledo and his companion, 21-year-old Ruben Roman, allegedly were walking toward 24th Street when Roman fired multiple rounds as a vehicle passed. Police technology picked up the shots fired, and a squad car arrived at the scene.

Within moments, Toledo was shot and killed. Prosecutors said he ran from an officer who pursued him on foot and ordered him to show his hands. At one point, Toledo paused and stood with his left side to the officer. His right hand was at his right side. The officer ordered him to “drop it” as Toledo turned toward the officer with a gun in his hand, according to prosecutors. The officer shot him in the chest.

Every second leading up to that tragic moment will be scrutinized. We hope the law enforcement community gives the public a full accounting of what they believe happened — a frame-by-frame audit from whatever vantage points are available, no matter how painful, no matter how consequential to the officer. We hope to hear more from Toledo’s family about what they see in the video, what they feel.

Six years ago, Cook County prosecutors and City Hall handled two separate police shootings very differently.

Footage of Laquan McDonald’s death at the hands of officer Jason Van Dyke was released to the public in November 2015, more than a year after his death, following a brief, controlled news conference. Then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel seemed to minimize the shooting as the act of a rogue officer — sweeping aside growing frustration over the Police Department’s code of silence and known aggression in minority communities. Emanuel left the news conference for a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, smiling near sparkling decorations in Millennium Park, as the video of 16 shots bounced around the world.

It took weeks for Emanuel to grasp the magnitude of the reckoning that was coming. He defended his police chief, Garry McCarthy, then fired him. He rejected calls for a Department of Justice investigation, then embraced it. He finally turned off his spin machine long enough to apologize.

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Then two weeks later, prosecutors took a different approach with another disturbing police shooting. They gathered dozens of media outlets into a room and walked them, and the public, through a minute-by-minute, exhaustive accounting of what led up to the 2014 death of Ronald Johnson, 25, also by a Chicago police officer. They played multiple videos from varying angles. They played recorded calls and conversations between officers in real time. There were PowerPoint slides. There were prosecutors, police and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez on hand to answer questions.

The video in that case also had been delayed by the Police Department and sought by his family.

There were differences in the two cases to be sure. Johnson’s family continues to dispute City Hall’s version of what happened and whether Johnson was, in fact, carrying a gun. But his family and the public had a more complete grasp of what Johnson was seen doing, the vantage points of officers there, the calls they were responding to, and what was happening on the ground.

A transparent, public review is due in Toledo’s case as well, including the involvement of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. The case continues to be investigated by her office and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability. But there will not be a yearslong delay in releasing video. There will be a more transparent review of the officer’s actions. The mayor this time around, Lori Lightfoot, is fully cognizant of the magnitude of the moment.

We soon will see what happened when the video is released. We hope to find answers. We wait.

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