Shocking Video Appears to Show Chicago Cop Shoot Unarmed Teen
New video published online appears to show the moment in which a Chicago Police officer gunned down an unarmed 13-year-old boy in a gas station parking lot on Wednesday.
The video, published on Friday by Chicago Media Takeout, shows the lanky teen running away from six officers into the light of the Marathon station before crumpling to the pavement in front of a gas pump.
The teen was hospitalized in “critical condition” and placed in custody for his alleged involvement with a stolen vehicle that officers were pursuing, according to police. Police also stated that no weapon was recovered at the scene and no shots had been fired at police.
Both the Chicago Police and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which is in charge of the use of force investigation, declined to comment on the video. The Instagram account Chicago Media Takeout, which published the video, did not respond to requests for comment.
WGN Chicago also released blurry footage that appeared to capture the incident from a different angle.
The events depicted in the newest video mirror the account given by Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown at a press conference Thursday night.
According to Brown, the teen had fled a vehicle when officers attempted to stop it in connection with a vehicular hijacking investigation. “Several officers” then followed him on foot to a “gas station parking lot at the 800 block of North Cicero,” Brown said.
The owner of a Marathon gas station at 801 N. Cicero Ave confirmed to The Daily Beast that the video of the incident was taken by his gas station’s camera.A review by The Daily Beast of pictures of the Marathon gas station and surrounding business also seem to align with the video’s contents and location.
After arriving at the gas station, one officer fired a single shot as the teen turned around, according to Brown’s account. Then, officers moved the boy for fear that the bullet would cause an explosion at the gas pumps.
It was not immediately clear from the newest video when the shot was fired, or if there were more than one.
The video does not show officers moving the boy, but skips to when the boy is apparently lying many feet from where the original shooting took place, as officers crowd around him.
Chicago Protesters March Over ‘Sick and Sad’ Police Killing of 13-Year-Old Adam Toledo
On Thursday evening, police superintendent Brown said the violence began when officers stopped a silver Honda Accord, which Brown alleged had been hijacked a day earlier in the nearby suburb of Oak Park. The driver of the vehicle fled and has avoided arrest.
The incident is the latest in a series of police shootings of teens in Chicago, from 13-year-old Adam Toledo last year to Laquan McDonald in 2014.
Stephanie Kollmann, policy director at Northwestern University’s Children and Family Justice Center, who has studied the data behind carjacking and youth in Chicago, warned against demonizing and criminalizing young Chicagoans of color—who have been publicly blamed by city figures for the rise in carjackings.
Kollmann told The Daily Beast she worries about “glacial” paced reforms following previous shootings, unrest, but also apathy: “That we’re somehow turning into a city that just accepts children as legitimate targets of police violence.”
When a journalist at Thursday’s press conference compared the shooting to that of the killing of 13-year-old Chicagoan Adam Toledo last year, Brown said he thought it “important to take this as a separate standalone case.”
On Friday, the officer who fired his weapon was relieved of his police powers, according to reporting by the Chicago Tribune.
Warning: Graphic footage
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