‘Excruciating’ footage shows shooting of unarmed boy
The images of 13-year-old Adam Toledo with his hands up as a Chicago police officer shoots him dead ‘‘speak for themselves’’, a lawyer said yesterday.
The police bodycam video, released on Friday by the agency investigating the killing, shows Eric Stillman chasing Adam down an alley on March 29 and shooting him in the chest after the boy throws away a gun.
Adeena Weiss-Ortiz, a lawyer for the Toledo family, said: ‘‘Adam, during his last second of life, did not have a gun in his hand. The officer screamed at him: ‘Show me your hands.’ Adam complied. He turned around, his hands were empty when he was shot in the chest.’’
She said that the images ‘‘speak for themselves’’.
The video shows the chase down the alleyway and the critical second in which the boy appears to have thrown the gun through a gap in the fence and turned to raise his hands.
Asked if the officer could have had time to see this clearly, Weiss-Ortiz replied: ‘‘All I know is that the officer has been trained to not shoot an unarmed individual, to not shoot an unarmed child.’’
The officer fired as Adam raised his hands and ran to the boy, calling into his radio for an ambulance and saying: ‘‘Where are you shot, man?’’
The video was released as protests continued in Minnesota over the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright by a female officer and a jury in Minneapolis prepared to hear the final arguments in the murder trial of the police officer accused of killing George Floyd.
Lori Lightfoot, the Chicago mayor, described the footage of Adam’s killing as ‘‘excruciating’’. She called for calm as businesses in the city centre fortified their premises.
‘‘We live in a city that is traumatised by a long history of police violence and misconduct,’’ she said at a press conference.
‘‘It is certainly understandable why so many of our residents are feeling that all too familiar surge of outrage and pain. It is even clearer that trust between our community and law enforcement remains badly broken.’’
Tim Grace, a lawyer for Stillman, said in a statement that he had faced a ‘‘juvenile offender’’ who ‘‘had the gun in his right hand’’. After the boy threw away the gun, he ‘‘looked at the officer, which could be interpreted as attempting to acquire a target’’, he said. ‘‘At this point the officer was faced with a life threatening and deadly force situation,’’ he added. ‘‘All prior attempts to de-escalate and gain compliance with all of the officer’s lawful orders had failed.’’
Adam’s mother said that her son was a goofy school pupil who loved animals and riding his bike.
The family asked protesters to avoid violence and to ‘‘work constructively to promote reform’’.