An unarmed 13-year-old was shot by Chicago police officers on Wednesday night after they fled a vehicle cops said was involved in a carjacking.
According to police, they stopped the car that night shortly after 10 p.m., believing it to have been tied to a “vehicular hijacking” in a suburb a day earlier. Officials said someone described as an “offender”—and later as a 13-year-old—fled the car and was shot by at least one officer before being brought to a hospital in serious but stable condition.
Cops indicated the driver of the car fled the scene and avoided arrest, abandoning the vehicle shortly thereafter. At least one officer was put on administrative leave while the shooting is investigated by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
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The incident comes in the wake of numerous high-profile police shootings of teenage Chicagoans. Perhaps the most immediate and relevant precedent: the case of Adam Toledo, another 13-year-old who was killed by police, in his case while holding his hands up in apparent surrender.
While police originally leaned on the fact that Toledo appeared to have been in possession of a gun that night, video later showed he had his hands in the air when he died. No officers were charged in the fatal episode.
In 2014, Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke killed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Video released showed McDonald had been walking away from police when he was shot 16 times. Multiple officers were subsequently implicated in a cover-up, and Van Dyke was convicted on murder charges and sentenced to prison before being released earlier this year.
