The videos show officers firing repeatedly at a stolen vehicle as it careens down the street away from them. Police insist the footage gap occurred because an officer’s body camera was not recording – having possibly sustained damage when O’Neal crashed the Jaguar he was driving into a police vehicle – but critics suspicious of what they believe to be a convenient error have called for a special prosecutor to investigate the case. On Friday, Chicago police released more than 40 hours of the shooting.
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Officers seemed keenly aware that they were wearing body cameras and that those cameras were recording all of their comments. “There’s going to be a learning curve”, Mr Johnson said, suggesting that if the weren’t properly used it might not have been their fault.
O’Neal is one of 640 people killed by police officers in the United States so far this year, according to numbers compiled by the Guardian. Police said they are investigating whether the body camera worn by the officer who fatally shot O’Neal malfunctioned or was turned off. He did not know when officers in the rest of the city’s 22 districts would be issued body cameras. Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi pointed out that the body camera starts working after the shooting – an indication that the officer, believing the incident was over, thought he was turning the camera off when he was actually turning it on.
Oppenheimer said O’Neal’s family viewed the video Friday, and relatives were so distraught that they left without speaking to the media. The officer who shot him is now awaiting trial on murder charges.
O’Neal was killed in the South Shore neighborhood following a police chase after he allegedly stole a Jaguar from west suburban Bolingbrook.
The same day that the O’Neal footage was released, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) signed a bill requiring students who take drivers education classes to learn how to respond if they’re pulled over by police. The public is set to get its first look at videos related to the shooting Friday, Aug. 5, 2016. The release marks the first time the city will make public such material in a fatal police shooting under a new policy that calls for it to do so within 60 days. It showed him being shot 16 times by a white officer.
The McDonald shooting video prompted accusations that Mayor Rahm Emanuel had delayed its release until after his re-election and some protesters called for him to resign.
He said that he also was “concerned” by some of the things he saw in the videos-which show police officers shooting Paul O’Neal, . Further on, police officers can not legally shoot 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.
Johnson told a news conference that it was against departmental policy to fire at or into a moving auto when the vehicle was the only potential use of force by a suspect.
But the policy also says that officers “will not unreasonably endanger themselves or another person to conform to the restrictions of this directive”, meaning they have the right to defend themselves if they or someone else are in imminent danger of being struck.
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Though the investigation is ongoing, CPD “will not wait” to “begin training reform”, said Anne Kirkpatrick, chief of the newly formed Bureau of Organizational Development.
