Children beg Chicago Police ‘please don’t shoot me’ in shocking body cam video
The Chicago Police Department has once again found itself at the center of public outrage after a newly uncovered video shows officers holding innocent children at gunpoint during a botched raid.
According to a local CBS affiliate CBS 2, the footage is being used as evidence as part of an ongoing investigation into what many believe have been several overzealous and unfounded raids by city police.
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In this incident, officers not only entered the wrong residence but also went on to interrogate the frightened minors without an adult present. Krystal Archie criticized the heavy police presence and said the lives of her children were placed in danger.
“They’re handling heavy artillery,” Archie said of police. “It would’ve taken one slip of your finger and my children would not be here.”
The news station has obtained body cam video from other raids in the past, but these clips from two attacks on Archie’s home are particularly disturbing given they show authorities pointing their guns directly at her children.
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he residence was ultimately raided a total of three times – once in February, a second time in April, and once again in May of last year. Chicago Police claims they were hunting down a suspect, but Archie maintained that the person in question is someone no one in her family knows and who has never even been to her home.
In the video from the April 26th raid, her 14, 11 and 7-year-old all immediately hit the floor when the officers come rushing with their weapons drawn. Then one child can be heard weeping in distress.
“I didn’t do nothing,” eldest child Savannah tearfully pleads while making sure to keep her face down. “Please do not shoot me, please, please!”
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“You’re not going to do this again!” she then shouts in reference to the first unnecessary raid in February. In response to that last statement, an officer orders her to “shut up.”
Savannah would later tell the press how the officers held their guns to the children’s faces throughout the raid. Her younger brother also recalled how the authorities kept “their finger on the trigger,” as if they were ready to shoot at any moment.
The family has joined the long list of traumatized residents who’ve opted to file a federal lawsuit against the city.
