City Will Not Block Release of Cedrick Chatman Police Shooting Video

Family of Cedrick Chatman, 17, says videos contradict statements made by police officer in 2013 shooting.

The city is petitioning for a federal protective order to be lifted from security videos of a police-involved shooting that reportedly show another black teen being gunned down from as many as five different angles in 2013.

Chicago’s Corporation Counsel Steve Patton says the city is asking for the video to be released in efforts to be “transparent and find balance with the public interest.”

Cedrick Chatman was 17 years old when he was gunned down in the street on the afternoon of Jan. 7, 2013, as police investigated a suspected carjacking near 75th Street and Jeffrey on the city’s South Side.

A Chicago police officer identified as Kevin Fry told investigators Chatman pointed a dark object toward officers as he ran, prompting the cop to fire his weapon, news reports said.

Attorneys for the teen’s family, who have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, say the videos contradict the officer’s statements. The family alleges in its lawsuit that Chatman was unarmed when he was shot.

The object Chatman held in hand was later determined a black iPhone box, which the officer and his partner believed to be a handgun, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Chatman was reportedly running away and when he turned to face the officers as directed who ordered him to stop, according to the family’s lawsuit. Believing Chatman to be armed and fearing that he would shoot his partner, Fry opened fire.

The Cook County Medical Examiner determined that Chatman died of multiple gunshot wounds.

The family’s attorneys say the shooting was captured on a police blue-light camera and four other cameras mounted on South Shore High School and a nearby business.

Chatman’s family have sought to have the videos publicly released but the city has blocked that motion, arguing that the videos are “low quality and incomplete,” the Chicago Tribune reported

Now, the city has reversed its position and is asking federal judge to vacate the protective orders that were granted and release the videos, Corporation Counsel Steve Patton announced Wednesday.

Patton explained that protective order was entered when the lawsuit was originally filed in 2013, as part of the city’s longstanding policy not to release videos or other evidence that could jeopardize criminal or disciplinary investigations, or other judicial proceedings relating to police misconduct allegations .

“With respect to the release of videos of police incidents, the City of Chicago is working to find the right balance between the public’s interest in disclosure and the importance of protecting the integrity of investigations and the judicial process,” Patton said in a written statement. “In this case, the city sought a protective order consistent with its decades-long policy. We recognize the policy needs to be updated, and while we await guidance from the Task Force on Police Accountability, we are working to be as transparent as possible.”

In its final report, the Independent Police Review Authority ruled that Fry was justified in the use of deadly force, which was “in compliance with Chicago Police Department policy,” CNN said in a news report.

An ex-IPRA supervising investigator, Lorenzo Davis, claims he was fired last July when he came to a different conclusion and refused to change his report.

Davis states the video “shows a shooting that should not have occurred,” and that a new investigator assigned to the case was “glaringly biased,” he told CNN.