Video reveals wild West Side police shooting

ByChuck Goudie and Christine Tressel WLS logo
Thursday, July 11, 2019
Video reveals wild West Side police shooting
Chuck Goudie and the ABC7 I-Team have reviewed nearly a dozen police videos of an incident that left a 26 year old gang member dead in early May.

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Chicago police body cam videos released on Wednesday show the frenetic foot chase of an armed man in Lawndale.

According to police, they stopped a known gang member on May 11, who they say showed a gun and began running.

Video shows a police officer chasing the suspect down the residential street and in front of a school. Less than ten seconds later gunfire is heard, but it isn't clear from the video who fired the shots.

The officer is heard saying the offender started shooting, but the officer wasn't hit and the video doesn't reveal whether the man running from police was wounded in that initial encounter.

Chicago police are seen flooding the zone looking for 26-year-old ex-con and convicted gang member Sharell Brown. During the search police are heard on body cam recordings saying that they found a magazine along the route that the foot chase took place. A gun clip appears to be on the side of the street.

"That's not my mag it's his. His mag..." the initial police officer said.

That first officer who engaged Brown said the magazine wasn't from his gun but that he did reload and kept his empty clip in his pocket.

After more than 15 minutes of searching the neighborhood there was more gunfire. That was the end of the incident.

Brown was shot and killed in a gangway a few blocks from the initial encounter. He is seen motionless, crumpled to the concrete. The armed officer standing over his body is seen removing a pistol from the man's hands, but the gun at that time didn't appear to have a magazine in it.

A spokesman for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability that released the video on Wednesday said no conclusions have been reached concerning the video and that it is still early in their investigation of what happened and whether there was wrongdoing.

At the time of the incident Chicago police described what happened as two armed confrontations with a man with a gun. After COPA'S release of the video on Wednesday afternoon, a CPD spokesperson said the independent investigative agency had not informed police officials of "any significant developments or requests to relieve anyone of police powers as of yet."