New video footage revealing the disturbing details of Chicago Police officers fatally shooting 18-year-old Paul O’Neal amid a stolen car chase were released Friday, with police preparing for “civil unrest” over it.
“It is one of the most horrific things I have seen,” Michael Oppenheimer, the O’Neal family attorney stated. “What I saw was a cold-blooded murder.”
The videos didn’t actually capture the shooting where the teenager fleeing police after a car chase was shot in the back. However, officers can be heard cursing at O’Neal as they put him in handcuffs. The head of the Chicago police oversight agency called the footage “shocking and disturbing.”
“It’s unclear as to whether or not he was the actual shooter, but you are going to hear one of the police officers say, ‘Now I’m going to get a 30-day suspension,'” said Michael Oppenheimer, the O’Neal family’s attorney.
One video shows a police officer shooting at a vehicle, which prompted a collision with a separate Chicago police squad car. The officers involved in the crash then began to pursue O’Neal on foot.’
The footage, which was obtained from the dashboard cameras and body cameras worn by two of the three officers who fired at O’Neal, “didn’t capture” the fatal shot. The body camera belonging to the officer who fired his weapon was either broken or came off during the pursuit, Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi announced earlier this week.
Meanwhile, an autopsy on O’Neal determined that he died from a gunshot wound to the back, according to records from the Cook County medical examiner.
In response to the incident, the Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson assessed the case and temporarily relieved two of the officers of their authority, assigning them to administrative positions until the outcome of an internal investigation by the Independent Police Review Authority.
The Chicago Police Department has gained an infamous reputation for imposing lenient punishments on officers charged with police misconduct.
Of the 28,567 allegations of misconduct that were filed against Chicago Police Department officers between March 2011 and September 2015, less than 2 percent of those complaints resulted in any discipline, according to The Citizens Police Data Project.
Of those cases in which discipline was imposed, the vast majority result in a reprimand or a suspension of less than one week.
Black Chicagoans filed 61 percent of all complaints in the database, but make up only 25 percent of sustained complaints, while white Chicagoans – who filed 21 percent of total complaints – account for 58 percent of sustained complaints, the The Citizens Police Data Project noted.