The footage released by Chicago’s Independent Police Review Authority, depicts two officers shooting at a stolen auto driven by 18-year old Paul O’Neal, who crashed into a police vehicle then fled into a backyard where he was gunned down.
Advertisement
A sergeant tried to calm the distraught officer by reassuring him that O’Neal had been driving a stolen vehicle (not a capital punishment offense).
Police can not legally shoot fleeing suspects unless they pose a threat to an officer’s life or unless the officer has a good faith belief the suspect poses a substantial danger to the public.
After watching the videos with O’Neal’s mother and sister, their lawyer, Michael Oppenheimer, called his death a murder.
O’Neal’s family on Monday filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the officers.
“They decided they would control this, so the cover-up has begun”, he said. She wiped away tears while describing how her brother was loved and made everyone smile. “She’s just very hurt right now”.
Johnson said he was “concerned” over the shooting of Paul O’Neal, but said he could not say specifically why due to the ongoing investigation.
No firearms were found on O’Neal, who was shot in the back.
Though cameras were able to record the scene leading up to and following the fatal shooting, they failed to document the moment when an officer fired the shot that killed O’Neal (according to the autopsy, O’Neal died from a gunshot wound to the back). “We have also heard that the police department or the police took off their body cams or disconnected them”. “It’s not easy being the police”, Johnson said at a news conference in the lobby of police headquarters. “We stopped the train, we stopped the buses, we stopped the traffic”, said one activist, Rev. Jedidiah Brown. The video proved that at least 15 shots were fired.
Police place handcuffs on Paul O’Neal after he was shot in this still image from a video taken from a body camera released by the Chicago police in Chicago. Please note that these depict graphic content, including violence and language. One police officer is overheard in the video cursing the wounded teenager, and telling him “to put your hands behind your back”.
The shooting starts after O’Neal rammed the vehicle into a police cruiser as he tried to flee the scene. “When I approached this, I didn’t know if he was armed or not”.
As seconds passed in the backyard, the officer grew distraught and feared that it would be judged a bad shooting.
“Man, this is so (expletive) up, man”. He declined comment on specific actions of the officers, citing investigations.
“Relax, he was in a hot vehicle”.
At another point, the officer claimed O’Neal shot at him during the foot chase. One officer is heard asking, “They shot at us too?”
“This is fantastic to me how these officers come into our neighborhood and treat us like savages”, Green said.
What the videos show is “shocking and disturbing”, said Sharon Fairley, the chief administrator of the Independent Police Review Authority, the city agency that investigates reports of misconduct and that released the videos.
“There is no question in my mind that criminal acts were committed”. What I saw was pretty cold-blooded.
Three of the police officers involved in O’Neal’s death have been taken off active duty.
“It’s disturbing and it’s violent and it’s scary”, Oppenheimer said. They have since been distributed to six other districts and the officer who shot O’Neal had been issued a camera as part of that rollout, said department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
Calling the footage of the shooting “shocking”, IPRA Chief Administrator Sharon Fairley said that the agency chose to release the videos before the 60-day timeline outlined in Chicago’s transparency policy because a determination was made “information can be released to the public without jeopardizing the investigation”. “It is one of the most horrific things that I have seen aside from being in a movie”. The officer, Jason Van Dyke, was charged with first-degree murder and is set to go on trial soon, though there have been disputes about who exactly should serve as prosecutor.
WGN News watched the footage of the shooting that was released to the public with former Chicago police officer Richard Wooten.
Advertisement
Johnson has said the officers, who he noted Saturday received the same training as the rest of the department, violated a department policy.
