Chicago Police Rolled Out a Cover-Up After Killing a 13-Year-Old Latino Boy

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Last Sunday, Elizabeth Toledo was relieved to see her 13-year-old son, Adam, walk in the door of their West Chicago home. She’d filed a missing-person report with police a day before, but he returned in time to join his mom at a relative’s memorial service. That night she put him to bed in a room he shared with his brother, grateful he was back.

The next morning, he wasn’t there. Adam Toledo had gone out, and in the middle of the night, around 2:30 a.m., Chicago police shot and killed the seventh-grade boy in an alley behind a high school, not far from his home in Little Village. But nobody told Elizabeth, who thought he’d gone missing again.

When the police finally reached out to her on Wednesday, a full two days after the shooting, they requested a photo of Adam. She assumed it was related to her earlier missing-person report. A half hour later, they knocked on her door and asked her to go to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office to identify his body. “I couldn’t even see him; they showed me a picture of my son Adam for just a couple of seconds,” she told Block Club Chicago. According to her attorney, she wasn’t told how he died—he was shot in the chest—until she met with authorities later.

In the days after Chicago police killed the boy, Elizabeth Toledo wasn’t the only one kept in the dark; city officials were also slow to provide key details to the public. In a carefully constructed statement issued hours after the shooting, the police department only revealed that officers had seen “two males in a nearby alley,” and that one of them was armed and began to flee. (The other person in the alley was a 21-year-old man.) A “foot pursuit…resulted in a confrontation,” and an officer “fired his weapon, striking the offender in the chest.” Along with these bare details, the police department tweeted a photo of a gun they said was recovered at the scene.

On Thursday, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown clarified that the so-called male “offender” who was shot by police was a juvenile. But even then, according to Carlos Ballesteros, a reporter at Chicago-based Injustice Watch, he did not yet specify the boy was just 13 years old; it took reporters digging through an autopsy ledger to break the news about his age that day, according to Lakeidra Chavis, a Chicago-based reporter at the Trace, which covers gun violence. “Someone knew early on the person shot was actually a young teenager. That information was omitted while crafting a self-defense narrative,” she tweeted.

The city also delayed the release of body-cam footage that captured the shooting. Initially, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which investigates police shootings, said the video could not be released because Adam Toledo was just a juvenile. On Friday, the agency reversed its position: It had made a mistake, it stated, and would release it within 60 days. Toledo’s family confirmed they would be shown the footage next week. “The public deserves a complete window into the split-second decisions our officers are forced to make,” Superintendent Brown tweeted Friday.

The obfuscation echoes the city’s response to the 2014 police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, another minor from Chicago’s West Side. Officer Jason Van Dyke, who is white, shot and killed McDonald, who was Black, while responding to a call about alleged car break-ins, and initially claimed the teen lunged at him with a knife. “City officials waited more than a year to release police dash-cam footage of the shooting—and did so only after a judge ruled in favor of an independent journalist whose public records requests were repeatedly denied,” Brandon Patterson reported for Mother Jones at the time. The video showed that Van Dyke shot McDonald 16 times, even after the teen had fallen to the ground, and sparked widespread protests and calls for then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel to resign. In 2018, Van Dyke was found guilty of second-degree murder, as well as 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.

After more details of Adam Toledo’s death became known this week, Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez told Block Club that incidents like the case have left her with little trust for the police. “For a very long time the police have been taken at their word. We’re not accepting that anymore,” she said. “You shot a 13 year old.”

“We’ve figured out the police are never going to tell the truth at all or they’re only going to share what makes them look good,” she added.

The officer who killed Adam has been placed on administrative duty for 30 days. On Friday night, a small group of protesters marched through Logan Square demanding justice. In a news conference earlier that day, Elizabeth Toledo said she wants to know the truth about why the officer fired a bullet into her son. “I just want to know what really happened to my baby,” she said, crying. An attorney said Adam had no criminal history, and that he once dreamed of becoming a police officer himself. Elizabeth Toledo recalled him as being a happy kid who loved animals, and said he was far too young.

“He still played with Hot Wheels,” she said in tears.
https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justi ... am-toledo/

Just another case that calls for the need to have an independent agency to investigate police shooting and other deaths of people at the hand of the police. Police should not investgate themselves.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Chicago Police Rolled Out a Cover-Up After Killing a 13-Year-Old Latino Boy

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The Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) exists now, so it's not CPD investigating CPD. The video will be released this week though in a foot pursuit at 2:30 am, don't know what the lighting was and what the quality will be. Don't know if there is any other video from businesses or residences in the area. Autopsy could give some additional evidence. A 13 year old out in the early hours of the morning without ID or mobile phone and with a 21 year old with a record. So many questions, so few answers right now.
“Recognizing that these are the most complex cases that COPA investigates, transparency and speed are crucial.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... -shooting/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Chicago Police Rolled Out a Cover-Up After Killing a 13-Year-Old Latino Boy

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highdesert wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 3:26 pm The Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) exists now, so it's not CPD investigating CPD. The video will be released this week though in a foot pursuit at 2:30 am, don't know what the lighting was and what the quality will be. Don't know if there is any other video from businesses or residences in the area. Autopsy could give some additional evidence. A 13 year old out in the early hours of the morning without ID or mobile phone and with a 21 year old with a record. So many questions, so few answers right now.
“Recognizing that these are the most complex cases that COPA investigates, transparency and speed are crucial.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... -shooting/
While the bodycam video could give some evidence to what happened, I think there will be a lot more to it. This reads to me like undercover cops robbing drug dealers and this was the unfortunate result.

Re: Chicago Police Rolled Out a Cover-Up After Killing a 13-Year-Old Latino Boy

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highdesert wrote: Sun Apr 04, 2021 3:26 pm The Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) exists now, so it's not CPD investigating CPD. The video will be released this week though in a foot pursuit at 2:30 am, don't know what the lighting was and what the quality will be. Don't know if there is any other video from businesses or residences in the area. Autopsy could give some additional evidence. A 13 year old out in the early hours of the morning without ID or mobile phone and with a 21 year old with a record. So many questions, so few answers right now.
“Recognizing that these are the most complex cases that COPA investigates, transparency and speed are crucial.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... -shooting/
Just between you, me, and 3 million or so other chicagoans, COPA is worthless and is essentially the police investigating the police. They’re unelected, appointed by the mayor, and they can’t actually do anything with any consequences.

Re: Chicago Police Rolled Out a Cover-Up After Killing a 13-Year-Old Latino Boy

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It seems the kid who was shot was reported missing a few days prior, then when Detectives contacted the mother they found out he had returned home, and then left for days again before being shot in a alley while running armed with a hand gun, by cops who were responding to shots fired call.

It sounds like he was gang banging and totally unresponsive to his parent(s), and whatever gang banger gave a 13 year old a hand gun needs to hang. The other guy with him repeatedly gave false ID and tried to hide his identity after being caught.

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/f ... k/2481286/

There supposedly is police body cam footage of everything, that will be released after the family views it.
Last edited by DJD100 on Sun Apr 11, 2021 9:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Chicago Police Rolled Out a Cover-Up After Killing a 13-Year-Old Latino Boy

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Adeena Weiss Ortiz and Joel Hirschhorn, who represent Adam's family, said in a statement that the family will "view the police body camera video and other materials related" to the shooting next week. The legal team did not give a specific date. "The City of Chicago, the Chicago Police Department and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability have been very cooperative," the attorneys said. "We wish to correct speculative reports in the media that suggest otherwise."
That's positive, but there is still a long way to go.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Chicago Police Rolled Out a Cover-Up After Killing a 13-Year-Old Latino Boy

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Chicago Releases Video Of Police Fatally Shooting 13-Year-Old Adam Toledo

Chicago’s police oversight group released footage Thursday of an officer fatally shooting a 13-year-old boy more than two weeks ago.

Police pursued, shot and killed Adam Toledo early March 29 in the primarily Latinx neighborhood of Little Village on the southwest side of the city. Police said the shooting followed an “armed confrontation” and that the child had a gun. However, video footage shows no gun in Adam’s hand and that he complied by putting his hands up.

As a seventh-grader, Adam is the youngest person in years to be killed by Chicago police. The Civilian Office of Police Accountability released materials on Thursday that include body camera video, third-party video, police incident reports, officer radio transmissions and recordings from the ShotSpotter gunfire detection system.

“COPA has remained sensitive to the family’s grief and is carrying out this release in accordance with the City’s Video Release Policy,” COPA spokesman Ephraim Eaddy said in a statement Wednesday. “COPA’s core values of integrity and transparency are essential to building public trust, particularly in incidents related to an officer involved shooting, and we are unwavering in our commitment to uphold these values.”

Before the video’s release, prosecutors claimed officers were dispatched after a ShotSpotter detected eight gunshots nearby and that Adam and another person fled as police arrived. Two officers chased Adam and a man whom police and prosecutors identified as 21-year-old Ruben Roman into an alley, where one of the officers shot and killed the child.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she had previously seen what she called on Thursday the “excruciating” video of police killing Adam, but would not talk about what she saw because she said it could compromise ongoing investigations by COPA and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office. She previously vowed to find the people responsible for “putting a gun into the hands” of Adam, shifting the blame away from the officer who shot him.

Prosecutors alleged during Roman’s bond hearing that Adam had a gun in his hand when he was shot. At a press conference on Thursday ahead of the video’s release, Lightfoot said the details of Adam’s death released in court were correct, but also that it was not her place to confirm whether the state’s attorney was accurate.

But right after the mayor’s press conference, WGN-TV reported that the state’s attorney’s office said its own detail about Adam having a gun when he was shot was inaccurate.

“An attorney who works in this office failed to fully inform himself before speaking in court,” Sarah Sinovic, a spokesperson for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, told WGN on Thursday. The news came just hours before COPA released video of the encounter, which did not show a gun from bodycam footage of the officer who killed him.

Adam’s family was not notified of his death until two days after the shooting. Police said the delay was due to being unable to identify him, despite a missing person’s report filed days earlier. Roman faces several felony charges, including child endangerment.

“I have seen those videos and they are particularly difficult to watch ― especially at the end,” Lightfoot said at Thursday’s presser, calling for people to withhold judgment until COPA finishes its investigation. “Simply put, we failed Adam.”

Bodycam footage shows two officers getting out of a car and immediately chasing after someone. A female officer is seen tackling and handcuffing a taller person in a beige coat with red gloves nearby (supposedly Roman), while a male officer continues to pursue Adam on foot while shouting, “Stop right fucking now, show me your fucking hands, stop it!”

Almost immediately after shouting at the child who had put his hands up, the officer shoots Adam in what appears to be his chest. Adam is wearing a black hoodie and a white baseball cap, and is seen lying in the alley with blood on his clothes and face, mouth agape. The officer calls for an ambulance and asks Adam where he was shot, but the boy is unresponsive.

Additional officers can be seen coming to the scene where Adam lies unresponsive, telling him, “Stay awake, man” and attempting chest compressions until an ambulance arrives. The officer who killed Adam shined a light on the back of the fence where he was lying, showing a gun several feet away. Prosecutors allege this was the gun Adam had carried.

“He’s gotta be some kinda King,” one officer said of Romano, who was on the opposite side of the alley from Adam, referring to a gang affiliation. Romano told police that he had just dropped his girlfriend off and was on his way to the town of Maywood via public transit when he was tackled. He said he thought so many officers arrived at the scene because of “shots fired.”

COPA allowed Adam’s family to privately view the footage Tuesday, an experience that the Toledo family attorneys said was “extremely difficult and heartbreaking” for everyone in the room. According to the Toledo family, Adam lived with two of his siblings, his mother and his grandfather.

The family requested that COPA delay releasing the footage as relatives still grieve Adam’s death. COPA said that although it is “acutely sensitive to the family’s grief and their desire to avoid public release” of the video, the office is required to comply with the city’s video release policy that mandates footage be released within 60 days of the incident.

Chicago Police Supt. David Brown said April 5 that “one of his greatest fears has been a deadly encounter between one of our officers and a juvenile,” before including a defense of police who he said carry “a heavy burden” when it’s time to “make split-second decisions” about deadly force.

Adam’s death reignited the grief and trauma Chicagoans have felt before, specifically from when a Chicago police officer shot at 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times and killed him. Lightfoot’s predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, withheld dash-cam video of McDonald’s murder from the public for over a year, until a lawsuit forced the city to release it. The cover-up is considered a major stain on Emanuel’s tenure as mayor.

Lightfoot has lost considerable trust from the public during her time so far as mayor, especially when local station WBBM-TV released body-cam footage of heavily armed officers raiding the wrong home, breaking the door down and handcuffing a naked woman in distress. The incident with Anjanette Young happened in February 2019 ― just months before Lightfoot took office ― however, Chicago police under Lightfoot tried to block Young from obtaining video of her own trauma, and the city’s lawyers attempted to block WBBM-TV from airing the footage.

The mayor also came under fire after media outlets reported that Lightfoot spent $281.5 million in federal COVID-19 relief money on covering overtime pay for police officers instead of on needed housing relief, business support and vaccine outreach for Chicagoans most affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Lightfoot faced harsh scrutiny from both activists and aldermen who accused her of prioritizing the police department over working families.

Protests demanding justice for Adam and his family have been passionate and peaceful. Adam’s tight-knit community of the Little Village (locally known as La Villita) held a vigil to mourn his life, and residents marched in the boy’s name. Community leaders spoke about the anger and pain of once again losing someone so loved to police violence, and of the overpolicing that Chicago’s Black and brown neighborhoods face.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chicago ... 54bb7a1a8f

Just more trying to coverup and justified protest.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Chicago Police Rolled Out a Cover-Up After Killing a 13-Year-Old Latino Boy

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Body-camera video released Thursday after public outcry over the Chicago police shooting of a 13-year-old boy shows the youth appearing to drop a handgun and begin raising his hands less than a second before an officer fires his gun and kills him.

A still frame taken from Officer Eric Stillman’s jumpy nighttime body-camera footage shows that Adam Toledo wasn’t holding anything and had his hands up when Stillman shot him in the chest around 3 a.m. March 29. Police, who were responding to reports of shots fired in the area, say the teen had a handgun on him before the shooting. In Stillman’s footage, the officer shines a light on a handgun on the ground near Adam after shooting him.

The release of the footage and other investigation materials comes at a sensitive time, with the ongoing trial in Minneapolis of former Officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd and the recent police killing of another Black man, Daunte Wright, in a nearby suburb.

Before the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, an independent board that investigates all shootings by police in Chicago, posted the materials on its website, Mayor Lori Lightfoot called on the public to keep the peace, and some downtown businesses boarded up their windows in anticipation of unrest.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... 3-year-old
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Chicago Police Rolled Out a Cover-Up After Killing a 13-Year-Old Latino Boy

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The amount of racist excuse making for cops locally here is very frustrating. "he only had a split second to decide". No he chose to shoot after a split second after telling the kid to drop the gun, which is what happened. Then he chose to shoot before he could see what was happening. That's negligence at absolute best.

"Think about the cops perspective" keeps being bandied about over and over.

How about think about the 13 year old kids perspective....

The system of police culture: the "us versus them" mentality is as much to blame here as anything else.

I have no doubt that if this was a white kid in the suburbs that he would have been treated differently. And he'd still be alive today.

Re: Chicago Police Rolled Out a Cover-Up After Killing a 13-Year-Old Latino Boy

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Yeah, I have no idea if it was a justified shot or not, too fucking quick with his hand from behind the fence. Wish the kid had been home in bed. Wish the cop had not pulled the trigger. Wish the kid had not been on that corner. Wish the cops didn't have to deal with kids with guns. Wish the kid had dropped the gun while running. Wish the cop magically knew the gun was slide lock empty.

In my opinion, this one points to a societal failure. We need better options for kids than shooting at cars in the middle of the night. That's not the kid's fault or the cop's fault. It's all our faults.

Re: Chicago Police Rolled Out a Cover-Up After Killing a 13-Year-Old Latino Boy

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Wish the kid had stayed home. Wish he had not been involved with whatever he was doing. Wish his parents had known a bit more about their kid. Our society has many failings that if addressed might have given this kid something else to do than go out at night and get in trouble with a gun. Ultimately a lot of bad choices by the kid. Unfortunately wishing won’t bring the kid back and won’t change what is wrong in our society. I’m not certain we will know what would have changed this outcome. I know where the majority of seventh graders were when this kid got shot, at home in bed.
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"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!" Loquacious of many. Texas Chapter Chief Cat Herder.

Re: Chicago Police Rolled Out a Cover-Up After Killing a 13-Year-Old Latino Boy

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sikacz wrote: Fri Apr 16, 2021 4:29 pm Wish the kid had stayed home. Wish he had not been involved with whatever he was doing. Wish his parents had known a bit more about their kid. Our society has many failings that if addressed might have given this kid something else to do than go out at night and get in trouble with a gun. Ultimately a lot of bad choices by the kid. Unfortunately wishing won’t bring the kid back and won’t change what is wrong in our society. I’m not certain we will know what would have changed this outcome. I know where the majority of seventh graders were when this kid got shot, at home in bed.
What could have changed this is the kid not being a habitual runaway, who was a or at least hung out with gang bangers.

I know it's hard and all events like this are unique in details etc, but no 13-year old should be roaming the streets at night armed with a hand gun.

I suggest that the 21 year old punk the kid was hanging with, who was actually doing the prior shooting according to gun shot residue tests as I understand it, and who likely gave the kid the gun and told him to run when the cops showed up to the shots fired call, be charged with murder.

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