Movies of deadly cop shooting showcase procedural errors, confusion over shots – Chicago Tribune
Movies of deadly cop shooting demonstrate procedural errors, confusion over shots
Warning: graphic content/language. The Independent Police Review Authority released movie Aug. Four, 2016, from the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Paul O’Neal. This clip shows footage from a Chicago police officer’s assets camera.
Warning: graphic content/language. The Independent Police Review Authority released movie Aug. Four, 2016, from the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Paul O’Neal. This clip shows footage from a Chicago police officer’s assets camera.
Warning: graphic content/language. The Independent Police Review Authority released movie Aug. Four, 2016, from the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Paul O’Neal. This clip shows footage from a Chicago police officer’s assets camera.
Warning: graphic content/language. The Independent Police Review Authority released movie Aug. Four, 2016, from the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Paul O’Neal. This clip shows footage from a Chicago police officer’s bod camera.
Bod camera movie from the officer who said he shot Paul O’Neal shows him telling officers where and why he fired. The movie was among those released from the Independent Police Review Authority on Aug. Five, 2016.
Assets camera movie from the officer who said he shot Paul O’Neal shows him telling officers where and why he fired. The movie was among those released from the Independent Police Review Authority on Aug. Five, 2016.
Shooting victim Paul O’Neal’s sister Briana Adams, 22, briefs the news media Aug. Five, 2016, along with attorney Michael Oppenheimer and activist Ja’Mal Green. The family viewed police movies from the shooting death of O’Neal earlier in the day at IPRA’s office. (Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune)
Shooting victim Paul O’Neal’s sister Briana Adams, 22, briefs the news media Aug. Five, 2016, along with attorney Michael Oppenheimer and activist Ja’Mal Green. The family viewed police movies from the shooting death of O’Neal earlier in the day at IPRA’s office. (Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune)
Warning: contains graphic language. Seventeen-year-old activist Lamon Reccord leads a protest at police headquarters after the release of movies showcasing the fatal shooting of Paul O’Neal by Chicago police officers Aug. Five, 2016, in Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)
Warning: contains graphic language. Seventeen-year-old activist Lamon Reccord leads a protest at police headquarters after the release of movies demonstrating the fatal shooting of Paul O’Neal by Chicago police officers Aug. Five, 2016, in Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)
Protestesters disrupt a news conference called by Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson at police headquarters Aug. Five, 2016, to discuss the release of movies displaying the fatal police shooting of Paul O’Neal. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)
Protestesters disrupt a news conference called by Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson at police headquarters Aug. Five, 2016, to discuss the release of movies demonstrating the fatal police shooting of Paul O’Neal. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)
Movies from the fatal shooting of Paul O’Neal by Chicago police display a succession of apparent procedural errors, including police firing at a fleeing vehicle with other officers in harm’s way and an admission by the officer who believed he fired the fatal shot that he had no idea whether the 18-year-old was armed.
Comments from that officer caught on movie indicate he may have erroneously thought O’Neal had fired from a stolen car barreling in his direction. In fact, those shots were fired in the officer’s direction by other police shooting at the stolen car in apparent disturbance of departmental policy.
Acting with uncharacteristic swiftness, Chicago officials on Friday made public nine movie clips in all. Shortly before the eleven a.m. release, the head of the Chicago police oversight agency called the movie footage “shocking and disturbing” and said her heart went out to O’Neal’s family.
At a news conference Friday afternoon, O’Neal’s sister, Briana Adams, 22, grew emotional as she told reporters that she and her family were devastated by what they witnessed on the movies.
“I want everyone to know that Paul had goals,” she said, then lowered her head and began to sob.
Her brother had graduated from high school and wished to go to a trade school and perhaps work for ComEd one day, she said.
“We just want answers — the truth,” she said.
Chicago police officers had attempted to stop O’Neal about 7:30 p.m. July twenty eight in the South Shore neighborhood as he drove a Jaguar convertible reported stolen in Bolingbrook, police said. O’Neal struck two Chicago police vehicles while in the car, and two officers fired at him while he was in the car, authorities said. O’Neal fled from the Jaguar, police said, and a third officer chased him behind a home and fatally shot him.
O’Neal, who was unarmed, died of a single gunshot wound to the back, authorities said.
Meantime, activists disrupted an afternoon news conference scheduled for outside police headquarters, shouting down Superintendent Eddie Johnson.
Protestesters disrupt a news conference called by Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson at police headquarters Aug. Five, 2016, to discuss the release of movies displaying the fatal police shooting of Paul O’Neal. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)
Protestesters disrupt a news conference called by Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson at police headquarters Aug. Five, 2016, to discuss the release of movies showcasing the fatal police shooting of Paul O’Neal. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)
“We are dissatisfied! Bridging that gap inbetween African-Americans and Chicago police? Unlikely! It is unlikely!” shouted activist Lamon Reccord, 17.
“(Mayor) Rahm Emanuel is using you as a scapegoat for the black community!” another activist shouted at Johnson.
Before Johnson retreated into headquarters, he told several reporters he understood the activists’ concerns in light of the movies.
“At the same time we’re attempting to do the right thing, to be translucent,” Johnson said as activists continued to shout over him.
The movies display officers firing on the Jaguar as it drives away from them, and their shots show up to place officers further down the street in danger of being shot.
The movies capture at least fifteen shots being fired in about five seconds as the Jaguar passes the officers and drives away.
The movie then shows the Jaguar hitting a police SUV, and O’Neal takes off running as police pursue him behind some homes, running up driveways and hopping fences. The clips do not showcase the fatal shooting, which happened in a backyard, but the devices record the sounds of about four more shots.
The fatal shot itself was not captured on movie, department officials said, even however the officer who chased and shot O’Neal was wearing a bod camera. Department officials have not said why the camera did not record the shooting.
The movies, which contain audio, expose a confusing scene in the shooting’s aftermath. The officer who believed he had fired the fatal shot primarily thought shots had been fired at his police car from the speeding Jaguar when it actually came from officers down the street shooting toward the Jaguar.
A Jaguar rolls toward a police SUV on a leafy Chicago street, passing inbetween the SUV and a parked car, striking one.
One officer — his gun drawn while still in his vehicle –— leaps out of the passenger side of the SUV, and as the Jaguar moves past, opens fire.
The officer strafes the scene with.
A Jaguar rolls toward a police SUV on a leafy Chicago street, passing inbetween the SUV and a parked car, striking one.
One officer — his gun drawn while still in his vehicle –— leaps out of the passenger side of the SUV, and as the Jaguar moves past, opens fire.
The officer strafes the scene with.
While the bod camera fastened to the uniform of that officer did not capture the fatal shot, a movie shows that the officer’s figure camera was operating after the shooting and was still recording when police processing the scene asked him to walk through the backyard where he fired his gun and help them find the shell casings.
A sergeant asks whether the shots fired at the officer came from the rear of the yard, but the officer tells him the shots fired in his direction happened back on the street moments before the stolen car pursue ended in a collision.
“No, the shots were coming at us when the car was coming at us,” the officer says before describing how he ended up in the backyard pursuing O’Neal on foot.
“I took off this way, he was coming over this way,” he says, indicating different sections of the backyard. “When I approached this, I didn’t know if he was armed or not.”
As seconds pass in the backyard, the officer grows distraught and fears that it will be judged a bad shooting.
“Man, this is so f—– up, man. I don’t want nothing to happen to that f—— stud, dude,” he says to the sergeant. “The way s—‘s going man, I’m going to be f—— crucified, bro.”
At that point, the sergeant seeks to reassure the officer, citing the car theft as justification for what happened.
“Loosen, he was in a hot car. Nothing to worry about.”
The officer asks whether a weapon was recovered from the Jaguar.
“I’m not sure, but just ease off,” the sergeant says. “Don’t worry about it. They were in a hot car.”
The officer also indicated that he didn’t know who fired the shots he heard, according to movie captured by another officer’s figure cam.
Shooting victim Paul O’Neal’s sister Briana Adams, 22, briefs the news media Aug. Five, 2016, along with attorney Michael Oppenheimer and activist Ja’Mal Green. The family viewed police movies from the shooting death of O’Neal earlier in the day at IPRA’s office. (Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune)
Shooting victim Paul O’Neal’s sister Briana Adams, 22, briefs the news media Aug. Five, 2016, along with attorney Michael Oppenheimer and activist Ja’Mal Green. The family viewed police movies from the shooting death of O’Neal earlier in the day at IPRA’s office. (Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune)
“Dude, I heard shots. I don’t f—— know, man. When he came out the [inaudible], I shot at him,” the officer says.
After O’Neal’s family viewed the movies Friday morning at the offices of the Independent Police Review Authority, which is investigating the shooting, attorney Michael Oppenheimer called the footage “beyond horrific” and said he plans to call for a special prosecutor to look into the shooting of the unarmed teenage.
“There is no question in my mind that criminal acts were committed,” said Oppenheimer, a former prosecutor who is indicating O’Neal’s family. “What I witnessed was pretty coldblooded.”
O’Neal’s family is suing the Police Department.
Ja’Mal Green, a spokesman for the O’Neal family who is free on bail after he was charged with felonies alleging he assaulted a police commander at a latest protest over officer-involved shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, said he was disturbed by one movie that shows a few officers appearing to commend each other after the shooting, jiggling arms.
“They did everything but high-five each other,” Oppenheimer said.
Oppenheimer said the movies expose the need to improve officers’ training.
“This goes down to training on race, this goes down to training on the community,” he said. “There’s a lot that needs to be done. Some of it has been done. We have a long way to go.”
Oppenheimer accused the officer who fired the fatal shot of intentionally shutting down his figure camera so no footage would capture that moment.
“They determined they would control this, so the cover-up has begun,” he said.
Movies from the fatal shooting of teenager Paul O’Neal by Chicago police demonstrate officers firing into a car that was being driven away from them and, later, officers handcuffing O’Neal as he lay wounded behind a home.
Acting with uncharacteristic swiftness, Chicago officials on Friday released nine.
Movies from the fatal shooting of teenager Paul O’Neal by Chicago police display officers firing into a car that was being driven away from them and, later, officers handcuffing O’Neal as he lay wounded behind a home.
Acting with uncharacteristic swiftness, Chicago officials on Friday released nine.
Before the release of the movies, Sharon Fairley, IPRA’s chief administrator, said in a statement that the agency is proceeding “as deliberately and expediently as possible in pursuit of a swift but fair determination” into the black teenage’s shooting. She said she expected to wrap up the probe in several weeks, much sooner than the embattled agency once took.
The footage, “as shocking and disturbing as it is,” Fairley said, “is not the only evidence to be gathered and analyzed when conducting a fair and thorough assessment of (the) conduct of police officers in performing their duties.”
Johnson took quick act after the shooting, undressing three officers who opened fire at O’Neal of their police powers and telling it appeared they had violated departmental policies.
The city’s quick moves after O’Neal’s shooting demonstrate how much has switched in the eight months since the release of movie of a white police officer shooting black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald sixteen times. The officer who shot McDonald, Jason Van Dyke, is charged with first-degree murder.
The McDonald movie — and long-simmering dissatisfaction with police use of force among many African-Americans — led to sustained protests, and the U.S. Justice Department launched an investigation to determine whether police had systematically violated residents’ rights. Federally enforced switches could come from that ongoing investigation, and Emanuel has announced or enacted a raft of reforms to policing and officer oversight.
Johnson broke with tradition by telling police appeared to have violated departmental policy in the O’Neal case. The superintendent, who was appointed by Emanuel amid the political crisis sparked by the McDonald movie, issued an unusual departmentwide memo telling that the information he had on the shooting “left (him) with more questions than answers.”
Chicago Tribune’s Annie Sweeney, Steve Schmadeke, Todd Lighty, Jeff Coen and William Lee contributed.
A previous version of this story, which was very first published Aug. Five, 2016, misquoted the police officer who shot Paul O’Neal, implying he thought O’Neal fired at him in a South Shore yard. The original quote was “When he came out the yard, he shot at me.” But a further review of movie shows that, in fact, the officer said, “When he came out the (inaudible), I shot at him.” The Tribune regrets the error.
