Chicago mayor urges new police foot-chase policy after boy shot and killed

[April 06, 2021]  By Brendan O'Brien

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday called for the city to create a new foot-pursuit policy after a police officer shot and killed an 13-year-old boy during a foot chase in an alley a week ago.

Adam Toledo was shot in the chest by an unidentified police officer at about 2:30 a.m. local time on March 29 in Little Village, a neighborhood in the city's West Side, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) said.

Police said Toledo was armed with a handgun. Officers were chasing him and another man after they received notification of shots fired in the area, the department said.

"Tragedies like these underscore the urgency of reforming CPD's foot pursuit policy not tomorrow, but now," Lightfoot said during a news conference on Monday.

As communities nationwide face a reckoning over police violence, the incident has renewed calls for police reforms in the third largest U.S. city. Chicago police have been under intensify scrutiny since 2014 when a white officer shot and killed a Black teenager. He was later convicted of second-degree murder.

A video of that incident led to a U.S. Justice Department investigation that found Chicago police routinely violated people’s civil rights, used excessive force and racially discriminated against people.

Chicago's Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks during a science initiative event at the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. July 23, 2020. REUTERS/Kamil Krzaczynski/File Photo

Video of the last Monday's incident has not been made public. The city's Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), which is investigating, said it is required to release police body camera video within the 60 days of the incident. The agency described it as "troubling video footage" in a statement.

Lightfoot also vowed to determine how the teenager had a gun, saying she has directed police officials to use DNA, fingerprint and tracing technology to find the person who gave him the gun.

For days, police could not identify Toledo. They said he did not have identification on him and that the 21-year-old man who was with him and was later arrested gave authorities a fake name, Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department David Brown said.

His mother identified him in the city's morgue last Wednesday, Brown said.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; Editing by David Gregorio)

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