Top cop to testify in wrongful death suit
Lawyer: Teen was unarmed, running away when he was shot
Police Supt. Eddie Johnson is expected to testify Thursday in the wrongful death trial of a teenager who was fatally shot in the back by a Chicago cop in 2013.
At the time, Johnson — who was not yet superintendent — was serving as acting street deputy when he arrived in the aftermath of the shooting and signed off on official police reports.
Officer Robert Gonzalez maintains that Christian Green, 17, turned and pointed a gun at him during a chase through a vacant lot in the Washington Park neighborhood on a sunny Independence Day afternoon four years ago.
A police report initially indicated Green had been shot in the chest.
However an autopsy performed by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office concluded that Green was shot in the back.
Attorney Vic Henderson, who’s suing the City of Chicago and Officer Gonzalez for an unspecified amount of money on behalf of the slain teenager’s mother, argues that Green was unarmed and running away when he was shot. The gun Green had been carrying was found 75 feet from his body, Henderson points out.
The jury trial began Tuesday at a courtroom in the Daley Center and is expected to last at least through the end of next week.
The Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates police shootings, determined that Gonzalez acted within departmental policy.
Testimony of Gonzalez’s work history has been barred from trial, including the fact that he was on a team of officers supervised by Sgt. Ronald Watts, who was sentenced in 2013 to 22 months in federal prison for ripping off a drug courier who was an FBI informant.
An officer on Watts’ team, Kallatt Mohammed, was also convicted and given time for the crime.
Gonzalez was never charged with any wrongdoing.
In March, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx announced her office would be reviewing hundreds of convictions involving Watts and his underlings.