The head of a Chicago-based black youth group says the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old suspected auto thief is an “example of systemic violence with policing in Chicago”.
Advertisement
He later said watching the footage was like watching an “execution”.
Mr O’Neal’s family is suing the department. Please see our terms of service for more information. “These police officers made a decision to play judge, jury and executioner”, he said. Ja’mal Green, a spokesman for O’Neal’s family, told CNN that relatives who watched the video immediately walked out of the room. “This is incredible to me how these officers come in our neighborhoods and treat us like savages like this”.
The latest recording catches the auto being pursued by officers as it blows through a stop sign and smashes head-on into another police cruiser. He had been suspected of stealing a vehicle. “There is no question in my mind that criminal acts were committed”.
“They decided they would control this, so the cover-up has begun”, he said.
Shootings involving police officers at Baton Rouge, Dallas, Miami and elsewhere have stoked public anger about police treatment of African-Americans. The fatal shots are not shown on the video but can be heard.
“They did everything but high-five each other”, Oppenheimer said.
Police said O’Neal stole a auto on 28 July, leading to a police chase.
Two officers shot at the Jaguar as it continued heading north on Merrill, and O’Neal then hit another squad auto, and bailed out, and a third officer shot him.
A post-mortem exam found that O’Neal was killed on by a gunshot wound to the back.
Below are the nine unedited videos.
The Chicago Police Department released video footage Friday morning of the death of 18-year-old Paul O’Neal, who was fatally shot in the back by police during a chase on July 28.
Video from the body camera, had it been recording, may have provided critical evidence in the shooting. The officers can be heard cursing at O’Neal as he lays lifeless on the ground, bleeding from his back.
The videos are laden with profanity.
In 2014, Laquan McDonald, a black teen who was walking away from officers with a knife in his hand, was shot 16 times by a police officer. “We are now in a pilot program”, he said.
Sharon Fairley, chief administrator of IPRA, said in a statement that the agency is proceeding “as deliberately and expediently as possible in pursuit of a swift but fair determination” into the teenager’s shooting. He said it is likely because the officer was unfamiliar with how to properly use the camera he only received shortly before the shooting or the camera malfunctioned.
Surveillance cameras tied Mr O’Neal and three others to a spree of vehicle thefts, officials in the suburb said.
“We don’t see the fatal shot”, Flores added.
Whether the crash had an impact on the camera’s ability to record is under investigation, he said.
O’Neal family, which filed federal civil rights lawsuit against the officers, was expected to see the video before it’s released to the public.
“My promise to the people of Chicago is that we will be guided by the facts and should wrongdoing be discovered; individuals will be held accountable for their actions”, he said. “They want us to be held accountable in our communities and break our code of silence”.
Advertisement
In order to work toward making a better department we must acknowledge the things we can do better and that work starts today. All three will remain on administrative duties – without their guns or badges – until both an Internal Affairs investigation and the IPRA probe have been completed.
