Dan Herbert, a Chicago attorney who has represented a number of police officers involved in deadly use of force incidents, says the officer who shot and killed 13-year-old Adam Toledo “absolutely had a reason to fire” if he believed the teen possessed a gun while turning toward him.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability – the city’s police oversight agency – on Thursday released body camera videos and other related materials two days after Adam’s family was shown footage of the March 29 shooting in Little Village.
The footage shows an officer chasing Adam in an alley while shouting at him to stop. Adam appears to pause near a fence bordering a parking lot at the end of the alley and turn toward the officer with his hands up but just moments before he threw away his gun.
Now the mainstream media who first reported that the victim the 13-year-old Toledo had a gun decided to change their stance and are now reporting more news about the case where they either deny or fail to mention the gun.
One mainstream media went one set further.
CBS News fanned the flames and shared deceptively edited police bodycam footage where they trimmed the right and left edges away to omit the portion of the video that shows Toledo holding a firearm.
Warning graphic video below:
WARNING: Graphic and disturbing content
Newly released bodycam footage shows Chicago police chasing and fatally shooting 13-year-old Adam Toledo, as he appeared to comply with orders to raise his hands. https://t.co/o8I5DRvU69 pic.twitter.com/WPqifN4KFZ
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 15, 2021
** (Disclaimer: This video content is intended for educational and informational purposes only) **
So CBS News shared a version of the police body cam footage where the right and left edges of the video were trimmed away, meaning that the portion of the video where Adam Toledo is seen holding a firearm at one point is no longer visible because it is now just off-screen.
You can watch the full video below. *At best*, CBS News looked at an explosive issue like a controversial police shooting & prioritized mobile screen viewing optimization over showing the full body camera footage (and thus edited out a key fact leading up to the shooting).
The video is 9 minutes and 22 seconds long. The shooting happens in the first 2 minutes and 5 seconds.
The first minute and 40 seconds just shows Officer Eric Stillman driving, dispatched to a ShotSpotter alert of eight gunshots in Little Village.
One minute and 44 seconds into the video, Stillman gets out of his car, immediately running down the alley near 24th and Sawyer.
His body camera video shows Adam Toledo running down the alley in a white hat, along with 21-year-old Ruben Roman, wearing a gold jacket.
The video shows Roman get pushed to ground, and Stillman continuing to chase Adam, who keeps running down the alley.
You don’t hear any sound until 1 minute and 58 seconds into the video, when the officer shouts at Adam to put up his hands.
The video shows Adam near the opening in a fence in the alley, both hands at his sides, his left shoulder facing the officer. The boy then starts to turn to fully face the officer.
That is the moment Arthur Lurigio, a professor at Loyola University and criminologist with a background in deadly use of force, focused in on Thursday.
“The barrel of the gun was shining,” Lurigio said.
He is talking about the moment the video clearly shows something in Adam’s hand.
“You need to look repeatedly at the video, and you need to freeze the frame. It appears that the young boy has a gun in his right hand. You have to look at it repeatedly to see that,” he said.
Lurigio said Adam assumed a position that suggested he might have gone on to toss the gun.
“His right hand appeared to be in a position where he could’ve dropped it or thrown it behind the fence where it was found,” Lurigio said.
WATCH (warning: graphic videos):
BWC 1 | Shooting Officer
** (Disclaimer: This video content is intended for educational and informational purposes only) **
Police have said a 9MM Ruger was found along a fence next to where Toledo was shot.