Judge Orders Video Preserved Of Shooting That Left Bystander, 15, In Critical Condition
By Christopher Hacker
A judge ordered police in both Chicago and Des Plaines to preserve body camera and other videos a week after a 15-year-old boy was accidentally wounded in a shootout with a suspected bank robber who had fled into a music school where the boy was taking a piano lesson.
The two police departments will have just over a month to release the videos to the boy's legal team, who filed suit in Cook County Court on Monday.
The incident, which also left a Chicago Police (CPD) officer shot, started with a bank robbery almost 11 miles away in suburban Des Plaines. One suspect was arrested after fleeing on foot, but another stole a car and took off toward the city, according to Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson.
FBI agents and Chicago, Des Plaines and Illinois State Police officers tracked that suspect's movements and were waiting when he got off the Kennedy Expressway at Irving Park Road. The suspect fired on police, striking a CPD officer in the head, fracturing his skull, Johnson said.
The suspect then fled into the nearby UpBeat Music and Arts at 4318 W. Irving park Road. Officers followed the suspect into the store, where, after an exchange of gunfire, police shot and killed the 32-year-old suspect, according to police.
An attorney for the 15-year-old bystander's family disputes the claim that the suspect fired on police inside the store, however.
"It was not a shootout," Attorney Tim Kavanaugh said after a hearing Tuesday morning.
Kavanaugh said he now wants to get a "clear picture of what happened" and find out "why this police officer fired what we've been told was 12 shots," when, according to Kavanaugh, the suspect didn't fire his weapon inside the store.
Wilder, who Kavanaugh said is out of intensive care but will remain in the hospital "for the foreseeable future," is a budding guitarist and was in the music store for a piano lesson, his parents said.
"He has a long, long road of recovery ahead", Kavanaugh said. "His left arm was almost blown away, quite frankly."
