Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot urged calm as body-camera footage of the fatal shooting of Adam Toledo, 13, was released for first time on Thursday.
The footage appears to show a Chicago police officer fatally shooting Toledo on March 29 as he raised his hands.
On Thursday, Lightfoot stood alongside Latino community leaders and called for calm.
Photo: AP
With her voice breaking while speaking at a news conference before the footage was released to the public, Lightfoot described the video as “incredibly difficult to watch, particularly at the end.”
“We failed Adam and we cannot afford to fail one more young person in our city,” she added.
Toledo was shot and killed by police following a foot pursuit.
At the time of the shooting, Toledo was with Ruben Roman, 21, who has been charged with several felonies in connection to that night including child endangerment and reckless discharge of a firearm.
The authorities had initially indicated that Toledo had a gun in his hand as he turned toward officers during the chase, after failing to obey commands to stop.
However, the video showed Toledo stopping as the officer shouts after him, turning and putting his hands up, with no sign of any weapon. The boy is then shot in the chest by the officer from a short distance.
The officer was identified on Thursday as Eric Stillman, 34, a white man who has been with the Chicago Police Department since August 2015.
“I want to ask again that everyone tuning in right now think first and foremost about Adam Toledo, about what his family is enduring every single day since they learned of his passing,” Lightfoot said.
In the wake of the video’s release, reactions ranged from sorrow to rage as the circumstances surrounding Toledo’s death became more clear.
Ibram X Kendi, a National Book Award-winning author and anti-racism advocate, wrote on Twitter: “His hands were up. But even if they were down, #AdamToledo should be breathing right now. But again.”
US Senator Ed Markey wrote on Twitter: “We need justice for Adam Toledo, killed at just 13 years old by police violence.”
Chicago residents and politicians have highlighted the legacy of racist policing in the city and underfunding of social programs targeting young residents.
“Policing is broken. It’s been broken for a very long time,” Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, a neighborhood representative in northern Chicago, wrote in a newsletter.
Information on the shooting, including Toledo’s age, was not made public until days after it happened.
Elizabeth Toledo, Adam’s mother, had not been notified about his death until two days after the shooting, leaving her to think that her son was missing.
Police initially reached out to the family asking for a photo of Adam.
She thought that it was for his missing persons report, but about 30 minutes later, police knocked on her door, asking her to go to a medical examiner’s office to identify his body, she told local media.
Protests have taken place across the city, calling for transparency and accountability, as many are angered by a string of police-involved shootings that have over the past few weeks killed young people.
In addition to Toledo’s death last month, Anthony Alvarez, 22, and Travon Chadwell, 18, were also killed by Chicago police last month.
These shootings have coincided with the ongoing trial of Derek Chauvin, a police officer charged with murdering 46-year-old George Floyd in May last year, as well as renewed protests over the police shooting of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old black man shot by police during a traffic stop on Sunday.
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