After Reed’s sister and father somberly called for justice and accountability, his mother, Nicole Banks, stepped to the microphones.

“I just miss my son,” she said through tears. “I’m hurt, I’m sick, I feel like I’ve been shot. My insides is burning up.”

Steven Hart, one of the family’s attorneys, questioned what prompted the tactical officers to even initiate the stop.

“Why were tactical officers jumping out of an unmarked police car with their guns drawn for a simple traffic violation of not wearing a seat belt?” Hart said. “To us, to the family, that sounds disproportionate. It sounds pretextual. There is a problem with policing in this city when five tactical officers jump out of an unmarked police car, brandishing their weapons, for a young man that wasn’t wearing his seat belt.”

Hart’s co-counsel, Andrew M. Stroth, called for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to bring charges in “a criminal indictment against some of these officers.”

Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling was not present for Johnson’s press conference, but took part in a question session with members of the public at police headquarters Monday evening. The first two questions posed to him — one from activist Miracle Boyd — both addressed the impending release of the Reed shooting video.

After the shooting, Snelling said, he immediately ordered CPD’s Incident Response Team to collect all video footage of the shooting so that the entire sequence can be seen in context.

“What you’re getting right now is people posting things in social media without all the facts,” Snelling said. “What I’m not going to do is sit here and frame everybody’s mind about what is going to be in that video when it comes out because you’re an intelligent woman (Boyd) and I know you can make your own decisions when you look at that video. But it’s not the things that you’ve been told. There were things that were omitted. Are there issues? There are always issues. There was a loss of life.”

Reed’s death, family had written a letter to Johnson and Snelling detailing Reed’s personal life.

“Dexter was the second oldest of three children,” his family wrote. “He has an older sister Porscha and younger brother Julius. Dexter played basketball at Westinghouse College Prep High School and led the team to a regional championship in 2016. After high school, Dexter went to school and played basketball at Morton College. While Dexter enjoyed basketball, he aspired to one day become a sports broadcaster. Dexter’s favorite artist was Jay-Z. Dexter also liked to eat vegetables and cooking baked beans. He was affectionately known to our family, friends and coaches as ‘Dex.’”

Without casting blame on either Reed or responding officers, Johnson at his news conference stressed the importance of “building trust” between communities and the police.

“It will not be easy. But we will not rest,” Johnson said. “And the only way we can build trust is through accountability. We will not rest until that accountability has been met.”

As his remarks ended, Johnson commented on the balance city leaders must seek in such instances.

“Shooting a police officer can never be condoned. … I will never stand for that, and neither will the city of Chicago,” Johnson said. “We also have to be very clear that we hold our police to the highest of standards. As agents of the law, they have the highest responsibility to the communities in which they serve. As a government, as representatives of the people, we have an obligation to abide by the rule of the law and to follow procedures, and that is what we are ultimately doing here.”

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