Chicago police investigate a police-involved fatal shooting in the 7300 block of South Merrill Avenue in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood on Friday, July 29, 2016. That may have caused O’Neal to collide with a second police SUV. O’Neal died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital an hour later. An autopsy revealed that he was shot in the back.
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Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson says he is concerned and troubled by what he saw on video – from a police squad car’s dashboard camera and new officer body cameras – showing the events that led to death of 18-year-old Paul O’Neal.
Johnson says he took the officers’ badges because three of the four involved might have violated department policy, but he declined to specify the exact policy violation, saying he didn’t want to sway the investigation.
Guglielmi described the suspension of the three officers as a “deviation from normal protocol”, according to the Wall Street Journal. Usually, officers involved in such incidents are put on desk duty and monitored. The city’s Independent Police Review Authority is investigating.
Some activists and longtime police critics say they’re encouraged by Johnson’s response in the O’Neal case. Eddie Johnson “spent most of this afternoon with top advisors and command staff reviewing the preliminary information”, Guglielmi said. Police say investigators are still reviewing the actions of a third officer involved in the shooting. However, there are speculations that it relates to the use of deadly force against moving vehicles.
Videos of the Thursday night shooting left Johnson with “more questions than answers”, he said. The third and final officer involved was relieved from duty Saturday, according to a statement from the Chicago Police Department. The videos have not been released the public. “That’s why I made the decision to relive three officers of their police powers pending the outcome of IPRA’s investigation”.
Not only was First Deputy Superintendent John Escalante on the scene speaking to the media, but investigators from the Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates police misconduct cases and officer-involved shootings, arrived and obtained footage from cameras that the officers were wearing or were mounted on their squad cars. “So if it’s an honest mistake, we’ll get them training, coaching, mentoring and get them back out there. If it’s intentional misconduct, then they have to be held accountable for it”.
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Chicago police have come under criticism for some of those incidents, including the October 2014 slaying of Laquan McDonald, 17, who was shot 16 times by an officer. The teenager has not been identified. The move on Friday goes further by stripping two of the officers of their authority; they will not return to duty unless they are cleared of wrongdoing, the Chicago Tribune reported. The owner of the vehicle has not been identified, and it is unclear how the cops knew it was a stolen auto at the time they chased O’Neal.
