● Prosecutors: 13-year-old shot by Chicago police had a gun.
CHICAGO – Tensions are high as the city prepares for the release of “troubling video footage” of the fatal police shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo last month.
Saturday, prosecutors described what the officer’s body camera footage showed, alleging Adam had a gun when he was fatally shot on the city’s West Side.
The details were revealed during a bond hearing for Ruben Roman, 21, who was with Adam when he died. Prosecutors said shots fired by Roman while standing next to Adam set off a chain of events that led to the fatal shooting.
This week, Adam’s family is scheduled to view the police bodycam video before it’s released to the public. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that police canceled days off for officers in preparation for possible demonstrations. Police spokeswoman Sally Brown declined to comment to USA TODAY.
Question: What happened leading up to shooting?
Answer: At Roman’s bail hearing Saturday, prosecutors shed more light on what happened. They said surveillance video shows Roman walking up to a corner and taking a “shooting stance” as a vehicle drove by before he fired seven or eight shots while standing next to Adam.
The relationship between Adam and Roman is unclear.
Police officers were dispatched to the neighborhood on the city’s West Side around 2:30 a.m. March 29. Adam and Roman fled, Chicago Police Department Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference last Monday.
One officer tackled and arrested Roman while another chased Adam, who prosecutors said was holding a gun when the officer shot him. Officers repeatedly told Adam to put the gun down before he was shot, prosecutors said.
That gun matched cartridge casings found in the area where Roman was firing, prosecutors said.
An officer shot Adam once in the chest during the “armed confrontation” in an alley, police said. Adam died at the scene.
Q: Who is the officer involved?
A: The identity of the officer who shot Adam has not been released. He was placed on administrative leave for 30 days, which Brown said is “routine protocol.”
Q: What do we know about Ruben Roman?
A: An arrest warrant was issued last week after Roman skipped a court date Wednesday for an unlawful use of weapon charge in an unrelated case. He was found April 9 hiding in a closet at his mother’s house, prosecutors said.
When questioned about Adam, Roman gave a fake name, denied knowing the boy or firing any shots and claimed to be in the alley waiting for a train, prosecutors alleged.
Roman’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Courtney Smallwood, called Adam’s death “tragic” and rejected the implication Roman is responsible.
“The victim is dead at the hand of the Chicago police officers, not my client,” she said, according to The Associated Press.
Roman was held on a $150,000 bond and faces felony charges of unlawful use and reckless discharge of a firearm, as well as child endangerment and violating probation. He was previously charged with a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest related to the shooting March 29.
The Toledo family was present during the bond hearing but was not in the position to comment, their attorneys, Adeena Weiss-Ortiz and Joel Hirschhorn, said in a statement.
Q: Has the family viewed the footage?
When will it be made public?
A: Adam’s family is scheduled to view the police body camera footage and other related materials this week, according to a statement from their attorneys. They did not say specify when or what details would be made public.
“The City of Chicago, the Chicago Police Department and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability have been very cooperative,” said a statement from the family, who “requested expedited meetings with pertinent authorities to obtain evidence and to review the police body camera footage and other available video.”
The police body camera footage is likely to be released to the public after the family has viewed it.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, or COPA, initially said it was prohibited from releasing the video because Adam was a minor, but it changed course, saying state law “does not bar publication of the body worn and thirdparty video camera footage the agency has obtained.”
The office described the body camera video as “troubling.”
Q: How is the family responding?
A: Adam’s funeral took place Friday. “The family appreciates the outpouring of support and the respect shown for their privacy in this time of mourning,” the family said in a statement last week.
At a news conference last Monday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot questioned “how a 13-year-old boy came to be in possession of a gun” before information had been made public about whether Adam had a gun when police shot him. Lightfoot spoke of “gangs ... preying upon our most vulnerable.”
After the news conference, the family responded by saying they were “concerned by presumptions, implications, and statements made today that are not supported by the facts made public so far.”
“We are unable to refute or respond to these statements until we obtain the evidentiary facts, which so far are known only to the police,” the statement said. “We do, however, want to correct the hurtful and false mischaracterization of Adam as a lonely child of the street who had no one to turn to. This is simply not true.”
Adam was a “loved and supported 13year-old boy” from a “close-knit family,” the statement said. He lived with his mother, his 90-year-old grandfather and two of his siblings, and his father was in his life, the statement said. He attended Gary Elementary School where he had the support of his teachers and his classmates.
“Adam was not alone,” the statement said.
Q: What has the mayor said?
A: At a news conference last Monday, Lightfoot called for changes in how police pursue suspects on foot and urged a “thorough, expeditious” investigation.
Lightfoot said pursuits on foot are one of the most dangerous activities police engage in because they are often separated from their partners and communication becomes difficult.
“We cannot and will not push the foot pursuit reform off for another day,” Lightfoot said. “No longer can we afford to put off to tomorrow what we can address today, because lives are truly at stake.”
Lightfoot said she spoke briefly with Adam’s mother, Elizabeth Toledo, to offer her condolences.
“Let us not forget that a mother’s child is dead,” she said. “Siblings are without their brother. And this community is again grieving.”
Q: How has the public responded?
A: Dozens of community members gathered for a vigil with a balloon release last Monday evening in the Little Village neighborhood where Adam died.
Ana Solano, with the grassroots advocacy organization Únete La Villita, organized a rally after the vigil, which she said gave people “an opportunity to express our anger and grief and to process our trauma together as a community.”
Solano said the shooting has been particularly traumatic for the Latino community in Chicago, especially for young people who might see themselves in Adam. The rally was meant to demand answers and accountability from Chicago police, she said.
Some of those answers may come in the release of the body camera footage, but Solano is reluctant to watch the “traumatizing” video.
“I can’t even imagine how it would feel for his mother to watch it,” she said. “And even if the video comes out, are the police really going to hold themselves accountable?”
A GoFundMe page raised more than $50,000 for the Toledo family.
“Adam had many dreams that he will never get to live out,” Elizabeth Toledo wrote on the page. “Ironically one of his dreams was to become a police officer.”