Chicago Police officer who shot, wounded 13-year-old boy in May did not have body cam on, and it was not the first time
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Body cam video has been released showing a Chicago police officer shoot a 13-year-old boy during a foot chase back in May, and the boy's family is looking for answers.
CBS 2 Investigator Megan Hickey has been digging into the history of the officer who fired the shots.
That officer's attorney has acknowledged he didn't have his camera turned on until after the shooting at Cicero and Chicago avenues in the South Austin neighborhood. The attorney said it wasn't intentional.
Hickey discovered this was not the first time the officer failed to turn on his body camera.
The officer was involved in another incident about a year ago where police records show he returned fire during a traffic stop in West Garfield Park.
But that body camera video in that case is also incomplete — only showing the aftermath of the shooting.
On June 16, 2021, officers stopped a sedan in an alley in the 300 block of South Kilbourn Avenue after noticing the occupants not wearing seatbelts.
But then, the CPD said an officer returned fire after shots were fired at officers. No one was struck.
In the June 2021 incident, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability released body camera video it identified as being from as the camera worn by the officer who fired shots. The video noticeably picks up not until after the shots were fired.
The officer identified in use-of-force reports — is the same officer who has been identified as the one who shot and critically wounded the 13-year-old boy on May 18 of this year.
We're not naming the officer involved in these incidents because he hasn't been charged and he isn't named in a lawsuit.
Andrew Stroth, the attorney for the 13-yeear-old boy's family, said the boy was surrendering when the officer shot him.
Chicago police had been following the car the teen was in after Oak Park police said the car was tied to a carjacking in Oak Park the day before on May 17.
In that incident, police said carjackers took off with a 3-year-old in the back seat.
When license plate readers tipped off CPD, they followed the car and the 13-year-old jumped out, police said.
"He literally puts his hands up - and that's the moment that he's shot," Stroth said.
But yet again, video of the actual shooting from his viewpoint is missing.
The officer's attorney tells CBS 2 that in the most recent incident he "thought he pressed the button" to turn on the body cam, and added, "It was a high stress situation."
"The other officers activated their cameras," Stroth said.
Policing expert David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said the fact that the officer's body cam was off is a problem.
"That video is going to be crucial, and the fact that it was not turned on is a failure of the system of accountability that the cameras were supposed to bring us," he said.
Harris works with departments to improve their policies. He says the missing video makes it much more difficult to evaluate the officer's actions.
Making it easier to evaluate officers' actions is one of the reasons why CPD invests so much time and money into the camera program. That program cost taxpayers more than $16 million as of 2019, according to data obtained by the CBS 2 Investigators.
"You know, police are human beings," Harris said. "Two mistakes? You start to wonder - and mainly I start to wonder whether anything was done after the first incident to reinforce the necessity of turning that camera on when required."
Hickey reached out to COPA about that 2021 incident and whether or not they issued any recommendations. But a spokesperson said the case is still under investigation more than a year later – so no recommendations have yet been issued.
