Seconds later, the Jaguar crashed head-on into a police S.U.V. and an occupant of the stolen vehicle, Paul O’Neal, fled on foot. Police said O’Neal crashed the Jaguar into two vehicles as they tried to stop him.
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Dean Angelo, president of the local police union, called for a careful, impartial review.
The top cop also said, “A lot of people are upset by what they saw”.
Police said O’Neal stole a vehicle on 28 July, leading to a police chase. She did not elaborate. The head of that agency called the video “shocking and disturbing”.
Chicago Police superintendent Eddie Johnson applauded the release of the videos and vowed to hold individuals accountable for their actions should any wrongdoing be uncovered.
Charlene Carruthers is national director of the Black Youth Project 100. He said it is likely because the officer was unfamiliar with how to properly use the camera he only received or because the camera malfunctioned.
“F-, man, I’m gonna be on a desk for 30 g– days now”, says one officer, who said he fired shots and is presumably wearing the body camera, after the chase ends.
Acting with uncharacteristic swiftness, Chicago officials on Friday released nine videos showing events leading up to the shooting of O’Neal, 18, last week. He says the video shows an execution before a trial. Authorities have not specified which policy the officers broke. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office have classified the death as a homicide, reports CBS Chicago.
The three officers who fired their guns were stripped of police authority pending an investigation – an unusually swift response and harsher than ones the department has taken in the past.
Michael Oppenheimer, an attorney for the O’Neal family, said that the family was devastated after viewing the video. While there is no video from the officer who cornered him, body cameras from two other officers show the aftermath, with a bloodied O’Neal lying on the ground. It showed him being shot 16 times by a white officer.
In another video, police appear confused after the shooting, asking whether any of the officers were shot as O’Neal lies bleeding on the ground beside them, handcuffed.
The video rules are part of series of reforms put in place after the police officers shot and killed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in October 2014.
A foot chase then begins, as officers follower the teenager into a garden. One officer placed his boot atop O’Neal’s leg as the teen was cuffed.
Officers are seen pursuing a man through a yard and over a fence while shots are heard ringing out. “If this is brand new equipment, how come the other officers knew to turn their cameras on and the officer who shot the fatal shot failed to turn his on or it got mysteriously turned off?”
The head of the agency that investigates Chicago police misconduct says video related to an officer’s fatal shooting of an 18-year-old suspect in a auto theft is “shocking and disturbing”. Johnson said he was “concerned” by some of the things he saw on the videos, which he said is what led to relieving three officers involved of their police powers.
“Every time a shooting happens, something’s wrong with the body camera”, Green said.
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.
The moment O’Neal was shot was not recorded because the officer’s body camera was not operating at the time, police said Friday.
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The dead teen’s family was so distraught after viewing videos at the Independent Police Review Authority headquarters that they left without making any public comment, their lawyer told reporters.
