Graphic bodycam video shows Chicago police shooting Terrell Eason
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Thursday, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability released body camera video showing officers fatally shooting an armed man running away last month in the West Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago.
During the July 3rd encounter an officer can be seen in the clip jumping a fence into a backyard as 33-year-old Terrell Eason picks himself up off the grass while holding a gun in his right hand. When he starts to run away from the officers he’s shot.
The official Chicago police account given the night of the shooting, said the two officers were responding to a call of a person with a gun about 8 p.m. when they saw the man run and gave chase.
According to reports released by COPA, both officers opened fire at the scene, with officer David Taylor firing eight rounds, and his partner Larry Lanier firing twice.
When Taylor’s body camera was activated the audio didn’t kick in until 17 seconds into the video, after the shooting.
The clip shows an out of breath officer trying to find an address to relay to the ambulance. Eason appears motionless as blood seeps through his white T-shirt and the officers turn him onto his stomach to handcuff him.
The officer asks a colleague: “You shot too, right? He wasn’t putting it down . . . Don’t talk.”
As the officer heads toward a squad car, others check to see if he’s OK: “I need a cigarette . . . Yeah, I’m good, I just need a light.”
Hours after the shooting, police officials said an “armed confrontation” with Eason led to the shooting. He died of multiple gunshot wounds at Stroger Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
The officers were placed on desk duty for 30 days following the shooting, per CPD policy, and have since returned to regular duty, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
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GRAPHIC: In new body camera video, Terrell Eason's motionless body is handcuffed after police shot him. The 33-year-old was shot and killed on July 3. Report by @mitchtrout | WATCH FULL VIDEO: https://t.co/jgJs3mrlI4. pic.twitter.com/Ey6jMI5GZP
— Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) August 30, 2018
Earlier this month Eason’s mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging excessive force and accusing the city of allowing an unconstitutional, unwritten custom that leads to police shootings during foot pursuits.
“I see a guy who is shot while running away, who is stumbling down through a yard and falls over and dies,” family attorney Gregory Kulis said Thursday after the video was made public. “He may have had a weapon, but as far as I’ve seen, not one agency ever alleged that he pointed or fired a weapon.”
