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“Disturbing bodycam video released [last] Thursday after public outcry over the Chicago police shooting of a 13-year-old boy shows the youth appearing to drop a handgun and begin raising his hands less than a second before an officer fires his gun and kills him.” AP News
The right is divided about whether the shooting was justified.
“Cops know that armed suspects most often discard their weapons on first perceiving the arrival of the police. The reason for this is simple: better to ditch the gun than get shot or catch a case for holding onto it (you can always get another one later)…
“If an armed suspect doesn’t abandon his gun, the pursuing officer has no choice but to assume the suspect intends to use it against him, and any reasonable officer will respond accordingly at the first indication of such intent. Sadly for Toledo, perhaps due to his youth and inexperience, he acted in such a way that his movements were interpreted as preparation to fire rather than discard the gun he carried…
“In Graham v. Connor (1989), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the ‘reasonableness of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.’ So, viewing the events from this perspective, we have Officer Stillman responding to reported gunshots at 2:30 a.m. and confronting two males in the immediate vicinity…
“Both of those males refuse to comply with a uniformed police officer’s clearly stated orders to stop, and one of them runs nearly the length of a football field before stopping, pulling a gun from his pocket or waistband, and turning toward Stillman… On seeing the gun, Stillman reasonably believed Toledo was preparing to shoot him and fired in self-defense, striking Toledo in the chest.”
Jack Dunphy, PJ Media
“Less than one second elapsed between Toledo beginning his turn toward the officer with a gun in his right hand [and then dropping the gun], and the officer firing a single shot from his service weapon. And these were not ideal conditions in which to make a split-second decision: it was dark, and Stillman’s heart rate and adrenaline levels were likely elevated due to the foot chase…
“Was it really so unreasonable for Stillman to have genuinely perceived a risk to his own life when he decided to pull the trigger? I don’t think so, but I’m certain of one thing: that’s not a question you can answer based on a single, out-of-context freeze-frame. Those who attempt to do so show their extreme ignorance of the realities of dynamic situations like these…
“Such hasty conclusions also reinforce cops’ perception, which I suspect is becoming even more widespread, that they should not expect fair treatment if they have the misfortune of being involved in a use-of-force incident. As that perception deepens among cops, we run the risk of more and more officers prioritizing risk-minimization over being proactive. As the past year of escalating crime has shown us, that’s a recipe for more tragedy.”
Rafael A. Mangual, City Journal
Some argue that “I hate to second-guess the officer, who was involved in a foot chase and undoubtedly surging with adrenaline, knowing that he was looking for an armed suspect. I hate to do it, but we have to because this sort of thing happens way too often. We also have to second-guess the entire police department because, if not for the body camera, the official record would reflect that Toledo was holding a gun when he was shot by Stillman. When government lawyers tell lies that are contradicted by body camera footage, is it any wonder that people mistrust the police?…
“I am not advocating for defunding the police, but we do need police reform. There are a few ideas that seem like good places to start. The first is to better screen police applicants and weed out people who are too aggressive and combative… Another important reform is better training… Too often, the reaction is to shoot first and ask questions later. Several veterans have made the point that American soldiers serving in combat zones have more strict rules of engagement than police officers patrolling American cities. This needs to change…
“I don’t believe that Officer Stillman set out that night to kill a child. I also don’t think that he shot Toledo… because he was a minority kid. But the fact remains that Stillman did kill an unarmed seventh-grader.”
David Thornton, The First TV
The left condemns the shooting and calls for police reforms.
The left condemns the shooting and calls for police reforms.
“Adam Toledo’s situation, perhaps like any such situation, is complex… The police officer had reason to believe that someone [at the scene] was armed. But it’s also hard not to wonder why the situation couldn’t have been defused without Adam being shot. This was a child, a 13-year-old. A trained adult police officer couldn’t have detained the boy without firing his weapon?…
“A study published in 2014 found that police officers, ‘despite being better versed in dealing with criminal suspects, overestimated the age of Black and Latino child crime suspects. White children, on the other hand, were not subjected to such overestimations.’…
“We need to be cautious about applying research like [this] to specific situations like the shootings being discussed. But the fact research shows how police officers might overestimate the age of non-White suspects suggests that officers might perceive more significant threats in the moment than really exist.”
Philip Bump, Washington Post
“[The post-Floyd reckoning in the media has] emphasized the need for journalists to look skeptically at claims from police and other officials following a killing, as they may come undone when more facts come to light…
“Shortly after the March 29 death of Toledo, a Cook County prosecutor claimed that Toledo was shot while holding a gun in his right hand. But body camera footage released on Thursday suggests this claim was inaccurate, as it appears to show the boy unarmed and with his hands raised when he was shot. Officials also described the incident as an ‘armed confrontation,’ without noting that Toledo had complied with officer instructions to drop the firearm and put his hands up.”
Caleb Ecarma, Vanity Fair
“Justice for Adam Toledo requires investments in our Black and brown communities and disinvestments in policing. One would be a proposal by the Chicago-based, Black youth-led GoodKids MadCity collective called the Peace Book, which would create neighborhood peace commissions with resources sufficient to meet community needs. The resources include funds for positive youth spaces, political and art education, mental health treatment, restorative justice, and conflict resolution services. The Peace Book could operate with a diversion of just 2 percent, or $35 million, from the CPD’s budget…
“Second, the Treatment Not Trauma ordinance, sponsored by Chicago Democratic Socialist Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez and backed by a diverse, citywide coalition, would prohibit CPD officers from responding to people in mental health crises and instead fund community-based mental health professionals. Similar programs in Oregon both reduce police violence and better serve community needs.”
Sheila Bedi, Washington Post
“At a young age, Adam was categorized as a special education student and separated from everyone else at school. Surrounded by the same six students with varying degrees of severe learning disabilities, Adam didn’t have the chance to develop strong friendships with any of his classmates…
“[According to one teacher] ‘It was clear he needed someone to talk to and the space to socialize himself better. He really liked to draw, his penmanship was perfect. I think if we offered an art class, he would’ve taken it, but we don’t even offer that to our students. He just needed one friend, one classmate or one other student he could connect with’…
“‘Defunding the police’ means providing us with adequate funding for after-school programming, violence prevention initiatives, creative arts curricula and workforce development opportunities. Chicago, known across the world as ‘Chiraq,’ has fostered street gang culture for more than a half century. I was 15 years old the first time a gang member gave me a pistol. As children, we normalize gun violence to the degree of no longer flinching at the sound of gunshots… Adam Toledo did not deserve to be killed by Chicago police. He, like many children from our side of the city, [deserves] more.”
Mateo Zapata, Chicago Tribune
A libertarian's take
“Aviation deaths once looked like an intractable problem. Then the federal government began probing every plane crash with an eye toward preventing future loss of life. Our skies got much safer as a result. A similar approach could reduce police killings. A federal agency should investigate every single killing and significant injury caused by American police officers, who have long killed people at higher rates than cops in many other wealthy democracies…
“Whenever a plane crash occurs, big or small, headline-grabbing or obscure, a team of experts is dispatched to reconstruct exactly what happened. The aim isn’t to advance a legal process or punish wrongdoers, but to figure out which changes, if any, could prevent it from happening again… What if every police killing triggered that sort of response?…
“Current investigations of police killings are neither independent nor broad enough in scope to determine whether many shootings could have been avoided, nor are they oriented around using findings in individual cases to identify patterns that would save lives nationwide. We must either change our approach or continue to allow preventable police killings, costing lives and undermining faith in the criminal-justice system.”
Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
