The City of Chicago reversed course Thursday and released the video of a fatal officer-involved shooting from 2013. The footage shows an incident in which Cedrick Chatman, 17, was gunned down while running from police after he was stopped for carjacking. The city, in a process similar to its year-long fight to keep the video of Laquan McDonald’s death secret, fought for over two years to keep the security footage of Chatman’s death under wraps. However, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has seemingly reversed Chicago’s obstinance in the name of “transparency.” This video release comes on the heels of the release of the video of the death of Philip Coleman, who was tasered and beaten to death in police custody in 2012.
The video from security cameras is too blurry to verify some of the police account with the naked eye, but it does show Officer Kevin Fry opening fire on Chatman. Officers claim that Chatman was carrying something that resembled a gun. He was later found to be unarmed. CNN describes the Chatman footage:
He runs across the street and squeezes between two parked cars as Fry's partner, Officer Lou Toth, gives chase. Chatman then hits an all-out sprint along the sidewalk toward an intersection. Toth sprints behind him.
Fry draws his handgun in the middle of the street, plants his feet near the intersection in a firing stance as Chatman appears to still be running away. Chatman is out of camera shot at the time, and it does not reveal his moves.
The camera then pans over and shows a wounded, unarmed Chatman lying in the street as Toth handcuffs him. The whole event takes about 10 seconds. Then Toth places his right boot on top of Chatman.
Of course, investigators found Officer Fry and Toth to be justified, because that’s what investigators in Chicago do. However, one of the original investigators involved in the aftermath of Chatman’s death was Lorenzo Davis, who has since become a noted whistleblower on the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), an ostensibly independent group charged with investigating all fatal police shootings and determining if they are justified. The IPRA was involved in several key junctures after 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was shot and killed by Officer Jason Van Dyke in 2014. It did not pursue disciplinary action against Van Dyke, even though the video later released in late 2015 by the City of Chicago makes it plain what happened. The IPRA has been implicated in a general practice of leniency and cover-ups for police and is under investigation.
Davis found that Fry was unjustified in shooting Chatman, and was later fired for doing so. His whistleblower’s account of the workings of the IPRA alleges vast corruption and inappropriate closeness with police.
Not only does the video of Chatman’s death show yet another in a long string of deaths of unarmed black men, it is a key thread in the story of Laquan McDonald, Chicago, and a city’s campaign to enable and protect police violence and corruption. Much of this campaign originates with the office of the mayor itself, and its long fight to keep any and all word or evidence of police shootings under wraps until criminal proceedings—which may never have been brought in the first place without video—are completed.