The family of a 13-year-old boy shot by Chicago police in the South Austin neighborhood in May has released security video that appears to show the young, unarmed teen being shot at a gas station as he flees from officers.
Police shot the teen after he had been riding in the passenger seat of a suspected stolen vehicle and fled from the car as it was being stopped by officers, police said. The boy could be paralyzed and is now fighting to walk, said his attorney, Andrew Stroth.
Building security footage and a police body camera video shared with the Tribune by Stroth show the boy running in front of a gas station. It appears he turns toward the officers with his arms spread out and above his head as officers shoot him.
He can be seen falling to the ground in front of a gas pump. And as police carry him away, his arms appear to move but not his legs.
The officer involved in the shooting, identified as Noah Ball by his lawyer, Timothy M. Grace, reportedly did not have his body camera on during the incident. Grace called that inadvertent and called his client’s actions instantaneous reactions to a rapidly unfolding situation.
“Police officers are required to make split-second decisions and the law not only understands that but allows for it,” Grace said in a statement. “Illinois law tells us that we are not to look at these situations with 20/20 hindsight but rather we should judge the actions of … law enforcement officers from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene taking into account the totality of the circumstances the officer was confronted with.”
Body camera footage from after the incident shows the officer pacing, calling for an ambulance and cutting through the boy’s sweatshirt with a pocket knife in an apparent attempt to identify wounds.
“How many Black individuals need to be shot before the Mayor and City of Chicago will enact and monitor a foot pursuit policy that values the sanctity of life,” Stroth said.
In June, the Chicago Police Department unveiled the final version of its new foot-pursuit policy, in the making for over a year since Mayor Lori Lightfoot and activists called for such rules following the back-to-back fatal police shootings of two young people who were chased by officers. In part, the policy states that officers can only engage in a foot pursuit if there “is a valid law enforcement need to detain the person” that outweighs the dangers of the pursuit.
The boy’s family filed a federal lawsuit a week after the shooting accusing the officer of needlessly shooting the unarmed teen.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of the teen’s mother, Cierra Corbitt, lists the city and the officer who fired the shot as defendants. It alleged the shooting was a direct result of the city’s failure at the time not to have a strict policy governing “inherently dangerous” foot pursuits.
The filing identifies the boy only as A.G. He is a seventh grader, it says, and weighs just 122 pounds. The officer’s bullets “shattered his spinal cord and blew up his esophagus,” Stroth told the Tribune.
The police officer who shot the boy was relieved of his police powers just days after the shooting.
“He’s still an active member of the Chicago Police Department,” police spokesman Don Terry said then. “He’s not going to be patrolling the streets and he won’t be able to arrest people.”
“There’s real issues with this case and the officer’s behavior,” the boy’s attorney said. “And there’s real issues with the city of Chicago and the use of unjustified and unconstitutional force, especially in communities of color.”
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability released the video to the boy’s family last week, but laws preventing the release of materials that depict juveniles barred COPA from sharing the video publicly, the organization said. The law that originally stopped the video from being shared publicly could be amended to increase transparency, the organization’s top official added.
“We are open to discussions with the General Assembly and our city elected officials to give families of juveniles a voice when determining what materials may be released publicly by COPA,” Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten said.
