Tensions are brewing again in Chicago after police fatally shot a 16-year-old boy this week.
On Monday night, police were chasing a car they say was connected to an earlier shooting. Officials say Pierre Loury, 16, jumped out of the car, and an officer pursued him by foot. Loury allegedly pointed a weapon at the officer and was shot in what police described as an “armed confrontation.” A gun was recovered at the scene.
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An anonymous witness told the Chicago Tribune the teen was shot scaling the fence.
“They shot him in the air,” she said. “His pants leg got caught on the fence and he hit the ground. If he hadn’t gotten shot, he would have cleared the fence.”
“We do believe that this individual turned and pointed the handgun at the officer, the handgun was recovered at the scene where the young man was shot,” said 1st Deputy Supt. John Escalante.
Police say the teen was a high school junior at Community Christian Alternative Academy and a documented gang member. Loury’s Facebook page photo shows him holding a handgun but the boy’s family insists he didn’t own a weapon.
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“Everything they said on the news is not the truth. It is not the truth. It’s not the truth,’ his mother, Tambrasha Hudson, said during a vigil.
In the wake of the shooting, protesters angrily confronted police in front of the station where the officers involved in the shooting worked, and then they moved down the street to the place where Loury was killed. Some protestors even went onto the expressway, leading police to stop traffic.
According to the Chicago Tribune, this is the fifth police-involved shooting in 2016 and the third fatal one.
The officer who shot Loury has been placed on desk duty for a month while the Independent Police Review Authority investigates.
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