Chicago releases video of 13-year-old Adam Toldeo raising his hands before cop shoots him dead – Security footage shows boy dropped a gun behind a fence before police caught up with him
‘If you are shooting an unarmed child with his hands in the air it is an assassination. His hands were empty when he was shot in the chest at the hands of the officer’- Attorney for victim’s family
WARNING: Graphic Content
Adam Toledo, 13, was shot dead by a Chicago cop during a foot chase on March 29
Chicago’s police review board on Thursday released the bodycam footage
Still frame taken from the nighttime footage indicates teenager wasn’t holding anything and had his hands up when CPD officer Eric Stillman, 34, shot him in the chest
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot had called for the video’s release but urged people to keep calm and remain peaceful in an emotional press conference
Chicago Police Department said Toledo was armed and fled with 21-year-old Ruben Roman Jr, who was apprehended for resisting arrest
Police say they recovered a gun at the scene
Footage shows that Toledo appears to throw a gun behind a nearby fence in the moments before he is shot
The city of Chicago Wednesday braced for possible unrest as authorities released the video of the fatal police shooting of teenager Adam Toledo late last month.

A still frame taken from the nighttime footage indicates 13-year-old Adam Toledo, [photo left], wasn’t holding anything and had his hands up when officer Eric Stillman, 34, shot him in the chest.
Police say the teen had a handgun on him that morning, and the bodycam footage shows the officer shining a light on a handgun on the ground near Toledo after he shot him in the early hours of March 29.
Earlier footage also appears to show the boy was carrying a gun in the moments before he was shot, throwing it behind a fence before turning to face the officer Stillman.
An attorney for Adam’s family said Thursday: ‘It could be a gun, I’m not going to deny that but it’s not relevant, because if he had a gun, he tossed it.’
She added: Those videos speak for themselves. If you are shooting an unarmed child with his hands in the air it is an assassination. His hands were empty when he was shot in the chest at the hands of the officer.’
The video’s release had the city on a knife edge Thursday with police on alert that the Latin Kings gang could retaliate for the shooting which took place in their neighborhood.
Video of an officer fatally shooting a 13-year-old boy showed the teen appearing to drop a handgun and raising his hands right before the cop opened fire
Some businesses in downtown Chicago’s ‘Magnificent Mile’ shopping district boarded up their windows in anticipation of protests turning violent.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, an independent board that investigates Chicago police shootings, released the graphic footage Thursday after allowing Toledo’s family to view it privately on Tuesday.





Police say the teen had a handgun on him that morning, and the bodycam footage shows the officer shining a light on a handgun on the ground near Toledo after he shot him in the early hours of March 29. The Chicago Police Department released a photo of the gun that was recovered from the scene after one of its officers shot and killed Adam Toledo last Monday.
Meanwhile the city of Chicago released body camera video on Thursday showing 13-year-old Adam Toledo turning around while being chased by a police officer on March 29.
The video shows the officer in pursuit ordering Toledo to stop and show his hands, which the teen is seen doing in the screenshot.
The officer fired a single shot, striking Toledo in the upper chest, after yelling at him to show his hands and ‘drop it’


The identity of the cop who shot 13-year-old Adam revealed Thursday, as a 34-year-old white police officer, Eric Stillman.
The Chicago Police Department typically doesn’t release the names of officers involved in such shootings this early on in an investigation, but Eric Stillman’s name, age and race were listed in the investigation reports released Thursday.
Adam’s family attorney said that she looked into Stillman’s record but found no prior disciplinary issues.
He has been placed on administrative leave.
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s office, which gets the accountability board’s report after it completes its investigation, will decide whether the officer is charged with a crime
According to the police report, officers responded before dawn on the morning of the shooting after a police technology detected gun shots in the area.
The 13-year-old victim who was Latino, and a 21-year-old, named as Ruben Roman Jr, fled on foot when confronted by police. The police report says an officer shot the teen once in the chest during an armed confrontation, following a foot chase.



The footage shows that it took 19 seconds from which the officer exited his squad car to when he shot the teen. That shooter it has been revealed is 34-year-old Eric Stillman.
After getting out of the vehicle, the officer chases Toledo on foot down an alley for several seconds and yells ‘Police! Stop! Stop right (expletive) now!’ He yells ‘drop it!’ at the teen right before he opens fire.
An officer is seen jumping out of his patrol car and pursuing Toledo on foot through an alley.
‘Stop right f***ing now!’ the officer yells at the fleeing teen. ‘Show me your f***ing hands! Drop it’
When Toledo turns around to face the officer, he appears to raise his hands. A moment later, a single shot rings out and the teen collapses to the ground, with blood gushing from his mouth.
The officer radios in ‘shot fired,’ lays Toledo flat on his back and begins frantically looking for the wound. ‘Stay with me, stay with me,’ he implores the mortally wounded Toledo.
Another officer rushes over with a medical kit and the two begin administering CPR. ‘I’m not feeling a heartbeat,’ the officer says.
One video appears to show Adam throwing something away in the moments before he is shot but it has not been confirmed what the item was.
Adam’s family attorney Adeena Weiss-Ortiz said Thursday: ‘Adam during his last seconds of life did not have a gun in his hand. Adam complied. He did not have a gun in his hand.
‘The officer saw his hands were up and pulled the trigger.’
Appealing for calm, the attorney added, ‘It is especially important to keep the peace. [The family] want justice.’


The board initially said it couldn’t release the video because it involved the shooting of a minor, but it changed course after Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago’s police superintendent called for the video’s release.
Footage of the Toledo shooting had been widely anticipated in the city, where the release of some previous police shooting videos sparked major protests, including the 2015 release of footage of a white officer shooting Black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times, killing him.
Lightfoot said the city has been preparing for months for a verdict in the Chauvin trial and that it had activated a ‘neighborhood protection plan.’
The Toledo family, meanwhile, issued a statement urging people to ‘remain peaceful.’
Small groups of protesters gathered at a police station and marched downtown Thursday night.


Just hours prior to the release, Mayor Lightfoot urged people to keep calm and remain peaceful.
Choking up at times, she decried the city’s long history of police violence and misconduct, especially in Black and brown communities, and said too many young people are left vulnerable to ‘systemic failures that we simply must fix.’
‘We live in a city that is traumatized by a long history of police violence and misconduct,’ the mayor said.
‘So while we don´t have enough information to be the judge and jury of this particular situation, it is certainly understandable why so many of our residents are feeling that all too familiar surge of outrage and pain. It is even clearer that trust between our community and law enforcement is far from healed and remains badly broken.’

Asked whether the video showed whether the teen fired on the officer, Lightfoot said she had seen no evidence that he had. She described watching the jumpy footage as ‘excruciating.’
‘As a mom, this is not something you want children to see,’ said the mayor. She declined to say if the footage showed whether the teen was holding a gun when he was shot, but she called a prosecutor’s assertion at a recent hearing that Toledo had a gun when he was shot ‘correct.’
The release comes in the wake of the traffic-stop shooting of Daunte Wright by a an officer in a Minneapolis suburb that has sparked protests as the broader Minneapolis area nervously awaits the outcome of the trial for Derek Chauvin, the first of four officers charged in George Floyd´s death.
In a lengthy email, Stillman’s attorney Tim Grace said Toledo left the officer no choice but to shoot.
‘The juvenile offender had the gun in his right hand … looked at the officer which could be interpreted as attempting to acquire a target and began to turn to face the officer attempting to swing the gun in his direction,’ Grace wrote.
‘At this point the officer was faced with a life threatening and deadly force situation. All prior attempts to deescalate and gain compliance with all of the officer’s lawful orders had failed.’ Toledo family lawyer says he was shot while complying with police

In Chicago, police said officers responded to an area of the Little Village neighborhood on the city’s West Side after learning that gunshots had been detected in the area by a police-operated technology.
Toledo and 21-year-old Ruben Roman Jr fled on foot when confronted by police, and an officer shot the teen once in the chest following a foot chase during what the department described as an armed confrontation. Police said a handgun the boy had been carrying was recovered at the scene.
The review board declined to release all but the most basic details of what happened, leaving many questions unanswered, including whether or not the boy pointed the gun at the officer or fired on him before the officer shot him.
The name of the officer, who was placed on administrative leave per department policy in police-involved shootings, has also not been released.
Some details did emerge at a hearing for Roman Jr, who authorities say was with Toledo the night he died, including prosecutors’ contention that the man fired the gun several times before officers arrived and had handed it to the teen.


Elizabeth Toledo, Adam’s mother, came forward over the weekend and issued a plea for calm following reports that members of the Latin Kings gang planned on seeking revenge for her son’s death by shooting at unmarked police vehicles.
‘No one has anything to gain by inciting violence,’ she said via a statement Sunday. ‘Adam was a sweet and loving boy. He would not want anyone else to be injured or die in his name.’
Elizabeth said her son had hopes of pursuing a career in law enforcement in the future.
‘He was so full of life. They just took it away from him,’ she said.
Neither Mayor Lightfoot nor Superintendent David Brown has discussed the shooting in detail or suggested the officer did anything wrong.
But the video’s release comes at a time of inflamed tensions between police and the public following several incidents around the country.
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