The family of Anthony Alvarez viewed footage Tuesday showing a Chicago police officer fatally shoot the 22-year-old last month in Portage Park, according to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which is investigating the shooting.
COPA spokesman Ephraim Eaddy declined to give further details. He would not say when the footage will be made public, only that it would be “well in advance of the city’s video release policy,” which typically gives COPA 60 days.
Alvarez was shot and killed by an officer early on March 31 after a foot chase in the 5200 block of West Eddy Street. Police say Alvarez pulled out a gun, “which led to a confrontation with police,” and an officer shot him.
Alvarez was pronounced dead at Illinois Masonic Medical Center. An autopsy found he died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Police have not said what sparked the initial foot chase. After the shooting, CPD spokesman Tom Ahern shared a photo of the gun he said police recovered from Alvarez.
The family said the video left them with many questions.
“I want more answers, the videos I saw do not explain what I saw in the morgue,” Veronica Alvarez, Anthony’s mother, told Fox32 Chicago in Spanish on Tuesday. “I want to know why they were chasing him. As of now I don’t have answers.”
Todd Pugh, an attorney for the family, told the station that “it was incredibly difficult, it was an absolutely chilling scene, and as his mother indicated already, it has left us with more questions than answers.
“But I know what I saw, and I saw Chicago police officers shoot their son as he ran away from them,” Pugh said.
The shooting occurred two days after an officer shot and killed 13-year-old Adam Toledo on March 29 in Little Village. Toledo’s killing also happened during a foot chase, prompting Mayor Lori Lightfoot to direct the Police Department to draft a new foot pursuit policy.
