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COPA releases harrowing video of fatal police shooting of Dexter Reed in Chicago, which mayor calls 'deeply disturbing'

Sam Charles, Chicago Tribune on

Published in News & Features

CHICAGO — The Civilian Office of Police Accountability released video footage Tuesday that shows a group of Chicago police officers firing dozens of bullets at a man during an ill-fated traffic stop last month in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.

The man, 26-year-old Dexter Reed, was killed in “an exchange of gunfire” shortly after 6 p.m. on March 21 in the 3800 block of West Ferdinand Street, according to COPA and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Video released Tuesday shows a team of five Chicago Police Department tactical officers surround the white SUV driven by Reed after he was pulled over for not wearing a seat belt. The officers, with weapons drawn, repeatedly order him to roll down the vehicle’s windows, but Reed appeared to ignore their commands.

After a few tense seconds, gunfire erupts. A CPD officer standing on the SUV’s passenger side was shot in the wrist. COPA said it was Reed who fired first.

Dozens more rounds were fired by the officers in the next 30 seconds. After he is shot, Reed can be seen falling out of the vehicle and officers continued to shoot him as he lies motionless in the street. All told, four CPD officers fired 96 rounds during the exchange, COPA said.

COPA said a gun was recovered in the SUV’s front passenger seat.

 

Mayor Brandon Johnson described the video of the shooting as “deeply disturbing footage” during an impromptu news conference convened at City Hall.

“I know this footage is extremely painful and traumatic for many of our city’s residents. It will be especially difficult for those of us living in communities where the events depicted occur all too often,” said Johnson, a progressive whose mayoral campaign heavily touched on fighting police brutality.

Flanked by representatives of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability and the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, the mayor continued, “As mayor and as a father raising a family, including two Black boys on the West Side of Chicago, I’m personally devastated to see yet another young Black man lose his life during an interaction with the police.”

Johnson said he called Reed’s family this weekend and also visited the officer wounded in the shootout and said “both Dexter Reed and this officer could have been my students.” Johnson once taught at Westinghouse College Prep, where Reed went to high school.

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