Anger in Chicago over ‘missing’ police footage of fatal shooting
POLICE in Chicago face questions over the claim that an officer’s body camera failed to record the moment he shot an unarmed black man in the back.
Paul O’Neal, 18, was killed after leading officers on a car chase through a city suburb on July 29.
After crashing the stolen Jaguar and fleeing into a back garden, he was shot by an officer and handcuffed as he lay mortally wounded.
The chase and the sounds of gunfire were captured on body cameras worn by the pursuing officers and mounted in their police cars.
But Chicago police claims the body camera of the unidentified officer who fired the fatal shot did not record the moment of the killing even though it was working minutes later.
That claim was met with anger by Mr O’Neal’s family and their lawyer, Michael Oppenheimer.
“These officers had their own street justice in their minds. They played judge, jury and executioner,” said Mr Oppenheimer.
“It is unbelievable to think that this new technology, the way we are in this world, simply didn’t work.”
Eddie Johnson, the police department’s superintendent, said the officers had only had the technology for about a week and faced a “learning curve” when getting to grips with them.
Chicago police have not said if the officer’s body camera was turned off or damaged when Mr O’Neal crashed the Jaguar into a police vehicle.
Three officers, including the shooter, have been suspended while the incident is investigated. In footage captured after the incident, the officer who fired says he thought Mr O’Neal had shot at him but later says: “I didn’t know if he was armed or not.”
The officer becomes agitated as he asks a colleague whether a weapon had been found in Mr O’Neal’s car and speculates he may be in trouble over the shooting. “I don’t want nothing to happen to that f---ing guy, dude,” he says. “The way s--- is going, man, I’m gonna be f---ing crucified, bro.” The officer appears to be Hispanic and officers refer to him as “Diaz”.
The city of Chicago has been accused of covering up police violence in the past and video has been a crucial tool used to galvanise the Black Lives Matter movement over the shootings of black men at the hands of police.
In October 2014 an unarmed 17-yearold black teenager named Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by police.
Video of the shooting was kept secret for more than a year until it was made public in November 2015.
Jason Van Dyke was charged with murder and superintendent Garry McCarthy was fired over the incident.