Judge allows release of Chicago police shooting video

The city of Chicago has released video showing the 2013 shooting of an unarmed black teen, Cedrick Chatman.

Lawyers for the city of Chicago Wednesday dropped their opposition to the release of the footage showing the January 2013 death of Cedrick Chatman, who was 17 when he was killed.

The officers said Chatman turned slightly toward them, and had a dark object in his hand, when Fry opened fire. As the officers pursued on foot, police say, the 5-foot-7, 133-pound Chatman turned toward them.

Questions about the Chatman video follow the November 24 release of a video showing a white officer fatally shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times.

The city had filed the protective order against releasing the video in early 2014 when the Chatman family filed its civil lawsuit. Chicago’s Independent Police Review Authority, a city agency tasked with investigating and disciplining police complaints, cleared the officers of wrongdoing, as it almost always does. Three weeks ago, just before the holidays, city attorneys filed a motion to keep the video under wraps.

Chatman was suspected of vehicle theft, police said.

A Chatman family lawyer says the video will show he never turned and posed no threat.

“His partner, Officer Toth, had elected to chase Mr. Chatman and try to capture him”, Davis said.

“I was in fear of Officer Toth’s life”, Fry said in his deposition.

Stephen R. Patton, head of Chicago’s Law Department, said after the announcement on Wednesday night that the city is working to find balance between public transparency and protecting the confidentiality of investigations.

Last month, a U.S. magistrate judge called the footage of Chatman’s shooting “inflammatory” as he ruled it should stay under a protective order because it could “taint the jury pool”, per NBC Chicago.

Lorenzo Davis says he was sacked after refusing to change the findings of his investigatory report.

Updated 3:30 p.m.: Three videos depicting aspects of a fatal shooting by Chicago police were released to the public Thursday afternoon.

Caroline Glennon, the public defender for Odom, accused the state attorney’s office of “overreaching and abusing its power by charging two men with Cedrick’s murder who weren’t even there at the time he was killed”.

At some point, Chatman “pointed a dark object back toward the officers as he continued to run”, according to IPRA. But as protests and commentary around high-profile cases have mounted, the need to fill an information vacuum with video evidence has gained supremacy over the idea that prosecutors have wide discretion to withhold evidence until trial.

According to court records, Fry said he fired four shots.

Protesters, however, are calling for his resignation, fed up with years of violence at the hands of police and what they say is an ongoing attempt to cover up the killings.

We talk with Brian Coffman, an attorney representing the boy’s family. “You’re taught that deadly force is a last resort and that you should do everything in your power to apprehend the person before you use deadly force”.

The video shows Officer Lou Toth in “hot pursuit” of Chatman on a sidewalk.

Andrew Hale, a lawyer for two officers named as defendants in the lawsuit, said in an email Thursday that the video will show his clients acted properly.

“I did not see where deadly force was called for at that time”.