A 13-year-old Hispanic teenager had apparently dropped a gun and was beginning to raise his hands less than a second before a police officer shot him to death in Chicago., according to images released Thursday due to community pressure.

A frame from the video taken by the body camera Police Officer Eric Stillman’s shows that Adam Toledo had nothing in his hands and that his arms were at least partially raised when Stillman shot him in the chest around 3 a.m. on March 29..

Police say the teenager was carrying a pistol before he was shot. And stillman’s camera footage shows the officer shining his lamp on a gun on the ground near Toledo after he shot him. Police officers were responding to reports of shooting in the area.

The dissemination of the images and other research materials occurs at a delicate moment, as the trial of former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin, charged in the death of George Floyd, is underway, and recently another black man, Daunte Wright, was killed by a police officer in a suburb of the city.

Adam Toledo raises his hands seconds before being shot. Civilian Office of Police Accountability / Handout via REUTERS.

Before the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) – an independent group that investigates all shootings involving Chicago police – posted the images on its website, Mayor Lori Lightfoot called on citizens to stay tuned. peace, and some businesses in the city center placed wooden boards in their windows for fear of possible disturbances.

We live in a city that is traumatized by a long history of violence and police misconduct.”Lightfoot said. “And although we do not have enough information to be judge and jury in this particular situation, it is certainly understandable why so many of our residents have that well-known sense of outrage and pain. It is even more evident that the trust between our community and the law enforcement agencies is far from being healed and continues to be seriously damaged ”.

In all, 19 seconds passed from when Stillman got out of his patrol to the moment he shot Toledo. The images on his camera show the police officer chasing Toledo on foot through an alley for several seconds and yelling at him: “Police! Stop! Stop right now! ”, Using profanity.

Once the teen slows down, Stillman yells at him, “Hands! Hands! Show me your (profanity) hands! “

Adam Toledo lies wounded on the ground. Civilian Office of Police Accountability / Handout via REUTERS.

Adam Toledo lies wounded on the ground. Civilian Office of Police Accountability / Handout via REUTERS.

Then Toledo turns to the camera and Stillman yells “Drop her!” And when he was repeating that order, Stillman opens fire and Toledo falls.. As he approaches the injured teenager, Stillman radioes for an ambulance. The boy is heard pleading to “stay awake,” and as other officers arrive, one of them says he doesn’t feel a pulse and begins CPR.

Adeena Weiss-Ortiz, a lawyer for the Toledo family, told reporters after the images and other videos were released that these “speak for themselves.”

Adam, for the last second of his life, didn’t have a gun in his hand. The agent yelled at him: ‘Show me your hands.’ Adam obeyed“, He said.

Weiss-Ortiz said it is irrelevant whether Toledo was holding a gun before he turned to the police officer.

El policía se acerca hasta Adam Toledo. Civilian Office of Police Accountability/Handout via REUTERS. T

El policía se acerca hasta Adam Toledo. Civilian Office of Police Accountability/Handout via REUTERS. T

If he had a gun, he threw it. The agent told him to show his hands, he obeyed. Spun around“, he pointed.

The Chicago Police Department does not generally release the names of officers involved in such shootings at such an early stage in the investigation, but the name, age and race of Stillman, who is 34 years old and white, were mentioned in the Civilian Office of Police Accountability reports published Thursday.

Weiss-Ortiz said he investigated Stillman and “from what I understand, he had no disciplinary action, no prior events.”

La alcaldesa de Chicago,Lori Lightfoot. REUTERS/Kamil Krzaczynski/File Photo

La alcaldesa de Chicago,Lori Lightfoot.

Lightfoot urged the public to keep peace and to avoid judgment until the police disciplinary board can finalize its investigation.. Her voice cracking, the mayor criticized the city’s long history of violence and police misconduct, especially in ethnic minority communities, and said that too many young people are vulnerable “to systemic failures that we simply have to fix.”

He also noted that watching the recording was “unbearable.” “As a mother, this is not something you want children to see,” she added.

Along with the police inspector, Lightfoot asked COPA to release Stillman’s body camera video. What’s more, The agency released the videos from other body cameras, four third-party videos and two recordings of calls made to the 911 emergency number, as well as six audio recordings of ShotSpotter, the technology that alerted police to the shooting in the Little area. Village, a predominantly Latino and black neighborhood on the west side of the city, which led officers to head there that morning.

Adam Toledo (Foto: Twitter@TrekkiesforPete)

Adam Toledo (Foto: Twitter@TrekkiesforPete)

Categorized in: