Amid the grief and outrage over the deadly shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago, CBS News is facing criticism for video posted on Twitter that crops out brief footage of the Latino boy holding a gun.
A clip from the officer’s body cam released by the Chicago Police Department shows the policeman exiting his squad car and chasing the boy down a dark alley as another suspect disappears from view.
The officer shouts: “Police! Stop! Stop right [expletive] now! Hands! Hands! Show me your [expletive] hands!”
The boy turns and raises his hands, and the officer shouts “Drop it” and fires his weapon.
CCTV footage of the March 29 incident shows Toledo throwing something through a gap in the fence as the officer approaches him. The bodycam video shows the officer shining a light on a handgun behind the wooden fence after the shooting.
However, CBS News tweeted a video formatted for mobile devices in which both sides of the video are cropped and the image of Toledo holding the gun is omitted.
The CBS tweet said: “Newly released bodycam footage shows Chicago police chasing and fatally shooting 13-year-old Adam Toledo, as he appeared to comply with orders to raise his hands.”
See the CBS News tweet:
WARNING: Graphic and disturbing content
Newly released bodycam footage shows Chicago police chasing and fatally shooting 13-year-old Adam Toledo, as he appeared to comply with orders to raise his hands. https://t.co/o8I5DRvU69 pic.twitter.com/WPqifN4KFZ
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 15, 2021
The Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra spotlighted CBS’s framing of the story, posting two images side-by-side that show what CBS News omitted from the bodycam footage.
This video is deceptively edited and cuts out the portion of the police officer’s body camera footage that showed that the suspect was holding a gun https://t.co/FC4C6W1CZi pic.twitter.com/f9JUAaUYAn
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 16, 2021
Last, week CBS News’ “60 Minutes” came under fire for accusing Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of a “pay-for-play” scheme in a report that omitted the governor’s lenghty explanation, which was backed by Democratic leaders familiar with the situation.
Chicago mayor: ‘We failed Adam’
Edited video footage showing the teen boy in Chicago being shot after raising his hands as ordered has caused widespread outrage.
Twitter user Steven Boots was among those the outraged until he saw the full video.
“I was so appalled at this video when I first saw it … then remembered this is CBS and low and behold the video has been edited,” he wrote. “The right side of the screen has been narrowed ever since [sic] slightly … in the unedited Version this man has a gun in his right hand.”
Bodycam footage after the shooting shows the policeman calling for an ambulance while urging the boy to “stay awake.” Other officers arrive at the scene and perform CPR.
Prosecutors said the boy was with a 21-year-old man, Ruben Roman, who had just fired a gun at a passing car, which drew police to the area.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot held a press conference shortly before the video was released, calling it “excruciating” to watch.
“Simply put, we failed Adam,” she said. “And we cannot afford to fail one more young person in our city.”
The mayor said Chicago is a city “traumatised by a long history of police violence and misconduct.”
“So while we don’t have enough information to be the judge and jury of this particular situation, it is certainly understandable why so many of our residents are feeling that all too familiar surge of outrage and pain,” Lightfoot said.
The boy’s family called for calm, asking for prayer for the city and that “people remain peaceful to honor Adam’s memory and work constructively to promote reform.”
The Chicago Tribune reported Toledo family lawyer Adeena Weiss Ortiz said the boy was not holding a gun the moment he was shot.
But she couldn’t say with “100% certainty” whether or not the boy had been carrying a weapon.
The officer who shot Adam Toledo, Eric Stillman, a 34-year-old military veteran, has been placed on administrative duty while an investigation takes place.
His lawyer, the Tribune reported, said there was “irrefutable evidence” his client acted properly, because “all prior attempts to deescalate and gain compliance with all of the officer’s lawful orders had failed.”
The attorney said it was “amazing and disheartening” no one checked on how the officer was doing after the incident.
The Chicago-Sun Times reported the Chicago Police Department the area where Adam Toledo was shot is a stronghold of the Latin Kings street gang, and police have been put on alert for possible retaliation.
The president of the Chicago Police Union, John Catanzara, alleged on CNN that Toledo was a member of the Latin Kings gang. He insisted the shooting was “100% justified.”
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