Two Chicago Police officers who were at the scene of a controversial police shooting in 2014 changed their accounts of what happened after they were presented with video surveillance footage, the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday.
The newspaper, citing documents obtained via an open records request, reported that two officers initially told investigators they were closer to the scene of the shooting of Roshad McIntosh than they actually were.
McIntosh, 19, was killed by Chicago Police officers in August 2014 in the North Lawndale neighborhood after police say he pointed a gun at them.
Since then, McIntosh’s family has filed a lawsuit to try to understand what happened the day he was killed. Cynthia Lane, McIntosh’s mother, said in 2015 that neither police nor the police review authority had told her anything about his death.
Video surveillance footage of the shooting scene was released earlier this year. Several police vehicles can be seen pulling into the 2800 block of West Polk to approach a group of people standing on the sidewalk.
Shortly thereafter, McIntosh runs out of the frame. His death was not captured on film.
One officer told investigators that he was in the rear of a building about 15 to 20 feet from McIntosh, who he said was armed with a handgun, when he was shot, according to the Tribune. Presented with the surveillance footage, the officer changed his story and said he was on a different side of the house and watching from a different angle, further away.
The sergeant on scene told investigators that he was in his squad car in the alley during the shooting and rushed to the scene when he heard the officer fire three shots, the Tribune reported. However, the video footage shows the sergeant still in front of the house at the time of the shooting.
In August 2017, the now-dissolved Independent Police Review Authority made the unusual decision to reopen its investigation of McIntosh’s death after it initially found the shooting to be justified.
An IPRA spokeswoman said at the time that reopening the case will allow IPRA to “look to all the facts of the case” and devote the “time necessary for the case to be investigated thoroughly.”
