Bodycam video of fatal police shooting of Adam Toledo details final minutes of boy’s life

April 16, 2021 in News, Video by RBN Staff

 

 

 

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

The 13-year-old boy appears to have a gun at one point, but when his hands are raised, he does not appear to have a weapon.

Tom Schuba, and Sam Kelly

A screenshot from video released by Civilian Office of Police Accountability showing Toledo with his hands raised before being shot. COPA

 

A police watchdog agency Thursday released a video showing a Chicago police officer shooting 13-year-old Adam Toledo, whose seemingly empty hands were raised — but who appeared to have a gun in his hand just a moment earlier.

The officer who shot Adam was wearing a body camera that shows him chasing the teen down an alley in Little Village at about 2:38 a.m. on March 29. The officer orders him to stop and show his hands.

A slow-motion version of the video from that body camera shows Adam standing sideways in a large gap in a wooden fence with what looks like a gun in one of his hands behind his back. The officer is on the other side of the alley. He yells, “Drop it!”

In less than a second, Adam raises his hands as the officer fires.

Adam crumples to the ground, and the officer calls for an ambulance and performs CPR.

The officer’s video doesn’t show Adam throwing away a gun, and the boy doesn’t appear to be holding a weapon in his raised hands.

But another video shows him apparently throwing something through a gap in the fence to the other side — and a video shows an officer discovering a handgun there.

After the shooting, the officer asks, “You alright? Where you shot?” and then “stay with me” and starts doing chest compressions on Adam.

Another officer’s body-camera video shows 21-year-old Ruben Roman, the man who was with Adam that morning, on the ground in the alley and getting handcuffed.

The Chicago Police Department gave reporters an advance look at the video and other surveillance videos from the neighborhood before the Civilian Office of Police Accountability released them to the public Thursday afternoon. One version of the officer’s body-camera video was played in slow motion.

Adeena Weiss Ortiz, an attorney for the Toledo family, said they’re exploring legal action against the officer who shot Adam.

“If you’re shooting an unarmed child with his arms in the air, it’s an assassination,” Ortiz said.

Asked about the slowed-down video of the shooting, she acknowledged Adam appeared to have something that “could be a gun,” but said the video must be independently analyzed to know for sure.

“It’s not relevant because he tossed the gun,” she said. “If he had a gun, he tossed it.”

Adam’s family is calling for peace, she added, because they don’t want to “compound this tragedy, inflaming emotions or inciting violence,” she said.

John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said the officer was justified.

“He was 100% right,” Catanzara said. “The offender still turned with a gun in his hand. This occurred in eight-tenths of a second.”

Tim Grace, an attorney for the officer, argued that he shouldn’t be charged “and I don’t think he will be charged. There’s always that chance that Kim Foxx will make a different decision and will do what is politically expedient in her view.

“I don’t know how you can charge a cop who was put in his situation. [Adam Toledo] had a gun and was turning with the gun. The officer had no back up and he did what he needed to do when fearing for his life. He is justified in his actions.”

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LINK TO BODYCAM VIDEOS RELEASED:

https://www.chicagocopa.org/case/2021-1112/

BODYCAM FOOTAGE (As appearing in above story.)