Chicago police shot and killed a 13-year-old boy on the west side of the city

Chicago police shot and killed a 13-year-old boy on the west side of the city

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The boy, identified by Cook County coroner Adam Toledo, lived near the shooting site in the Little Village neighborhood.

The police department’s initial statement said a police officer shot him during an “armed confrontation” and tweeted a photo of a gun that a spokesman said was recovered at the scene.

In a follow-up statement on Thursday, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown released a statement identifying the person shot by the police as a teenager, but did not mention the boy’s age and declined to reveal his name.

The officer was placed in administrative duties for 30 days, he said.

The boy’s mother wants answers

During a news conference on Friday, the boy’s mother, Elizabeth Toledo, said she wants to know the truth about why the police shot her son.

“I just want to know what really happened to my baby,” said Elizabeth Toledo between sobs. “The cops shouldn’t … they had a lot of options, but they didn’t kill him. They could have shot him in the leg, arm, in the air. I don’t know. But to kill my baby?”

Police officers are not trained to aim at the legs and arms. Cedric Alexander, a nationally recognized policing expert and former chief of police, told CNN in 2017 that officers are instructed to aim at the center of a person’s chest because it is the target they are most certain to hit and is most likely to hit to catch the suspect low.

The family released a statement saying that although Toledo was killed on Monday, his family was not notified for two days, said CNN affiliate WLS.

Adeena Weiss Ortiz, the family’s lawyer, said on Friday that Toledo was informed by police that her son had died, but was not informed that he had been shot and killed until she met with the authorities in person.

Toledo said Adam was happy, loved animals and built Legos. “He was still playing with Hot Wheels,” she said in tears.

Adam “was a good boy” with no criminal record, said Ortiz.

Filming at dawn

According to the police, the officers were answering a call about shots fired at around 2:30 am, when they saw “two men in a nearby alley”. One of them was armed, according to the police, and fled the police. A police officer fired, hitting a person in the chest.

The police said only that the boy “was pronounced dead at the scene” and did not specify the age of the person the officer shot.

The Civil Police Accountability Office (COPA), which investigates incidents of use of force by the Chicago police, is analyzing the shooting and issued a statement after the boy’s age became public. According to the agency, the policeman was using a camera and fired a shot.
The agency will release the video in the next 60 days, a COPA press release said on Friday.

The agency previously said it could not release the associated video due to the boy’s age.

“COPA is currently working with the Toledo family and their representative to provide a review of the worrying video images,” says the statement.

The mayor and the police superintendent called for the release of the images from the body’s camera.

“While the investigation is ongoing, it is extremely important that COPA release relevant videos first for the family, and then for the public, as soon as possible, with appropriate protections, considering their age,” said the mayor.

Brown said Friday in a Twitter post which was encouraged by the transparency of COPA in launching the video.

“The public deserves a complete window into the split-second decisions that our officers are forced to make,” he tweeted.

CNN’s Melissa Alonso, Peter Nickeas and Hollie Silverman contributed to this story.

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