A police surveillance agency released a video Thursday of a Chicago police officer who shot Adam Toledo, 13, last month. Mayor Lori Lightfoot called for calm as the city was protected throughout the night.
The video shows an agent getting out of his vehicle and chasing Toledo, who is running down an alley. When the agent catches up with the teen, he orders her to raise her hands and yell at him, “Drop it, drop it.” The officer fires a single shot at Toledo’s chest while the teenager raises his hands.
The teenager falls to the ground and the officer rushes to administer help and asks for backup. Police have said a semi-automatic pistol was recovered a few meters away. Lightfoot said Thursday there was no “evidence” that the teen shot the gun before he was shot.
The March 29 incident began around 2:30 a.m. when a police audio scanner detected shots. Less than a minute later, police found Toledo and Ruben Roman, 21, who was attacked by police and arrested.
A lawyer for the officer accused of shooting Toledo claimed that Toledo was armed and that the officer was “facing a deadly and deadly force situation” and that he “had no other choice.”
The lawyer representing the teenager’s family said Toledo did not have the gun when the officer opened fire. “These videos speak for themselves,” attorney Adeena Weiss Ortiz said Thursday. “Adam, for the last second of his life, had no weapon.”
Shafkat Anowar / AP