Video Of Chicago Cops Gunning Down Black Teen In 2013 Released

(AP Photo/M. Spencer Green).

Chicago’s decision – involving the video of 17-year-old Cedrick Chatman – may signal a shift in how cities and prosecutors handle the release of such footage. A federal judge on Th…

Newly released video of a 2013 fatal police shooting shows a teen running away from two police officers when he was gunned down in the street in broad daylight in a South Side Chicago neighborhood.

The video, from a 2013 shooting, is the latest to draw notice in Chicago since November, when images of another teenager, Laquan McDonald, being shot 16 times were released after months of resistance from city officials.

The videos are expected to be released on Thursday.

Neither Fry nor his partner at the scene, Officer Lou Toth, were disciplined.

Police were pursuing Chatman after he and his friends stole a auto. At the time, Chatman was holding a box for a smartphone. Fearing for his life, Fry reportedly fired at Chatman. One video from a camera that pans back and forth is grainy and it doesn’t show Chatman fall; another is clearer and shows Chatman fall, but it is taken from farther away and doesn’t show definitively if Chatman ever turned.

Boykin says lawmakers in Cook County-the place where Chicago is located-plan to push the IL legislature to adopt a new law that would allow the governor to mandate that a special prosecutor be appointed to examine cases involving police and unarmed civilians. “We looked at that case back in 2013 and determined that no criminal charges were warranted”, Alvarez said. The five-member panel was asked to, among other things, review how to release potentially explosive videos and establish greater oversight over officers with multiple complaints against them. I’m shot, ‘ according to documents released Friday, a day after the city released video of the shooting.

Lawyers for Chatman’s mother, who brought the lawsuit against the city over her son’s shooting, say the videos contradict statements by police that Chatman, a carjacking suspect, had pointed a dark object at them.

“It’s not really practicing transparency”, said William Calloway, who had pushed for the release of the Chatman video. Lorenzo Davis said his last performance review accused him of “a complete lack of objectivity combined with a clear bias against the police” and said he was the only supervisor who refused to make ” requested changes as directed by management in order to reflect the correct finding” in cases of officer-involved shootings. At first, he ruled the shooting was unjustified, and claims he was sacked as a result. 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. The judge also said the city had been disingenuous in its previous arguments that the videos would not be part of any pretrial motions and therefore should be barred from public view.

This video also brings more controversy to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s doorstep; the mayor has been dealing with calls for his resignation since the McDonald shooting video was released. Like Cedrick Chatman’s, that shooting was deemed justifiable, but the city settled with the teen and his family for $99,000, without an admission of guilt.

In a surprise court filing Wednesday, though, the city abruptly dropped its opposition, citing the ongoing work of the mayor’s Task Force on Police Accountability, which is expected to issue recommendations in March on the city’s long-standing policy of keeping police shooting videos from the public.