Two Chicago cops lied about being shot at before they gunned down an unarmed man in late July, prosecutors announced Friday.
According to State Attorney Kimberly Foxx, a nearby surveillance camera caught the events leading up to 23-year-old Miguel Medina being shot in the back and thigh by cops, leaving him hospitalized.
“The victim in this case that I described to you who was shot by the police officers who are being charged today was unarmed and did not fire a weapon,” Foxx told reporters at a press conference in Chicago.
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What the footage showed, Foxx said, was in direct contradiction to what officers Christopher Liakopoulos and Ruben Reynoso later claimed: that they had been shot at first.
Lawyers for the officers could not immediately be reached for comment.
According to the Cook County State’s Attorney's Office, Liakopoulos and Reynoso were on their way to a training session on July 22 when they saw “several males walking westbound on 18th street” near closed businesses.
The officers were in plainclothes and in an unmarked squad car, according to reporting by the Chicago Sun-Times.
After they stopped to check out the scene, Medina—as well as a minor, who was holding onto a gun inside a satchel—walked towards the cops’ vehicle.
Then, before he reached the car, the boy with the weapon ran away. Medina continued to approach the officers, waving at them with his open hands. (In one hand, he held a cell phone and a wine bottle; the other was empty.)
That’s when things suddenly went sideways.
Both officers pointed their weapons outside the vehicle and began to shoot multiple times at Medina, striking him “in the back and leg,” after which he fell to the ground, according to court documents presented to a judge on Friday.
After Medina was hit, the armed minor he was with stopped running and turned around to fire at the officers, and they fired shots back. It was then that a third person—a pedestrian—was hit in the leg, as well.
“The Defendants and the juvenile were not struck by gunfire,” said court documents filed by prosecutors on Friday.
The officers were both charged with three counts of aggravated battery with a firearm, aggravated discharge of a firearm, and official misconduct.
“During the interviews with Detectives, the Defendants initially related that they discharged their weapons only after they were fired upon by the juvenile,” according to the prosecutors’ filing.
Later, the document says, officers told investigators “they did not know who shot first but indicated that the juvenile pointed the gun at them before any shots were fired.”
The officers were relieved of their police powers before they turned themselves in. At a bail hearing on Friday, bond for the two cops was set at $25,000 each.
July’s incident is just the latest in a city with a long legacy of police violence—and alleged cover-ups.
In 2014, the city erupted in protest over the brutal killing of a Black teenager named Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times by officers as he was walking away from police. Later, multiple officers were implicated in covering up the shooting; one officer was convicted on murder charges.
But many other instances have also led to public outcry, even as they have not resulted in criminal charges against cops.
Just two months before Medina was shot, The Daily Beast uncovered footage of cops shooting an unarmed 13-year-old in a gas station parking lot. The cop who struck him, Noah Ball, has not been charged with a crime. The teen survived.
At Friday’s hearing, lawyers for the officers leaped to the defense of their clients, arguing that the officers were shooting at the boy, who they say had his gun out already.
They also argued that because the surveillance video’s angle was from behind the boy who brandished a gun, and because there was no sound, there was no way to know whether they had been shot at first.
“It’s unclear, judge,” said lawyer Brian Sexton, who also defended one of the officers who was at the scene of the McDonald shooting, “but in any event, it wouldn’t matter because he’s pointing the gun at the officer.”
Medina also plans to file a lawsuit, according to reporting by Fox32 in Chicago.
The officers “shot me for no reason,” he told the outlet. “Once the video is released, it will show what happened.”
Meanwhile, lawyers for the cops requested that the court stop the video from being released by the city’s cop watchdog organization, COPA—which they said they expected could come next week.
The judge said they would hold a hearing to discuss the release of the video in the coming days.
