Chicago police released body and dash cam videos from the shooting death of Paul O’Neal, an unarmed 18-year-old man who was shot in the back after crashing a stolen car into a police vehicle.
However, the video of the actual shooting was not made available because police say that cop’s body cam was not recording.
It was an autopsy that confirmed he was shot in the back, leading to a federal lawsuit filed by the teen’s family against the department.
However, one of the videos show officers shooting at the fleeing car, which then crashed into a second patrol car, which is what made the cops in the second vehicle believe O’Neal was firing at them.
Those two cops have been disciplined for violating departmental policy.
Towards the end of the first video, a cop mentions that three cops were shot, which would mean they were all shot from friendly fire as none of the suspects had guns, but that has not been confirmed with the department.
According to the Chicago Tribune:
The video clearly shows officers firing down the street at the car as it speeds away.
The city’s use of force policy explicitly bars police from shooting into a car when the vehicle represents the only danger.
The videos are laden with profanity. “I think I shot that motherf—–, man,” one officer can be heard to say. He tells other officers the person he shot is lying three houses over. “Think I’m good – bunch of shots,” the officer says.
“We just came from watching Chicago police officers execute Paul O’Neal,” (family lawyer Michael) Oppenheimer said of the videos.”These police officers decided to play judge, jury and executioner.”
Oppenheimer noted that no body camera captured the actual fatal shooting. He accused the officers of intentionally doing that.
“They decided they would control this, so the cover-up has begun,” he said.
The First Video
The first video is from a body cam from one of the officers who was in the car that collided with the Jaguar driven by O’Neal. It starts off after the incident and without audio, until he turns the audio on.
The cop then starts talking to other officers, breathless from the pursuit, telling them he dropped his taser gun during the chase.
“Man, I think I shot that motherfucker, man,” he says at 1:11 in the video.
At 2;15, he begins to talk about “this motherfucker … “ when a female officer points at her camera, saying, “hey, hey” as if warning him to not talk so much.
Police supervisors eventually begin to question him about firing his gun and he says he fired about three to five rounds after hearing shots.
But those shots came from other officers, not O’Neal as he was unarmed.
Later in the video, as he takes other officers to the area where he fired his gun, he tells them that shots were coming at them while they were in their car, but those apparently came from other officers.
“Man, this is so fucked up. I don’t want nothing to happen to that fucking dude,” the cops says at 9:45.
“The way things are going, I’m going to be fucking crucified, bro.
“They didn’t recover a weapon in the car?”
The cop is obviously distressed, so fellow officers tell him to relax, advising him not to use his phone to call anybody, specifically the union, most likely because that conversation can fall under a public records request.
Instead, they tell him that the union has already been called on his behalf.
Later in that same video, he is inside an ambulance being checked out.
“Oh, my god, I hope nothing happens to that guy,” the cop once again says.
“No, he’ll be all-right, man,” another cops says.
After they take his camera and microphone, one of the cops mentions that cop’s name is Diaz.
It is at the end of that video where a cop mentions three cops were shot.
The Second Video
This is the body cam from a cop driving a car with a partner next to him when they are dispatched to the call about the stolen Jaguar.
At 1:13, the cop stops the car and steps out to shoot at the Jaguar, which sideswipes the car. It was a dumb move by the cop because he could have easily been struck by the Jaguar.
The cop then starts shooting at the fleeing Jaguar. His partner can also been seen shooting. Then the cops starts chasing the suspect along with other cops.
Gunshots can be heard as the cops runs into a backyard and finds several officers standing around man who has been shot in the back. The man is handcuffed.
There is then confusion about whether the suspect ever had a gun and why the officers even fired in the first place, saying they shot because they heard shots.
“Who was shooting in the alley? Was that him?” asks a cop at 7:30.
The Third Video
This is the dash cam from the car driven by the cop described above. There are several unexplained missing audio gaps here.
The Fourth Video
This is a dash cam video that ends up colliding with the stolen Jaguar at 4:13.
After the crash, the screen fills with smoke and there is much yelling and commotion and gunshots can be heard.
Shortly before the 8:00 mark, radio chatter reveals that a cop is injured, possibly shot.
Nothing much notable takes place in the rest of that video.
The Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Videos
These are just a continuation of the second video from the same dash cam, so we see a bunch of cops hovering around the crashed jaguar, sometimes looking inside, other times huddled in conversation, but nothing notable takes place in this video.
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