Shock: video of 13-year-old Hispanic died at the hands of a Chicago police officer

WASHINGTON.- Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of ChicagoBut all America is shocked, helpless in front of images of an unarmed child with raised hands and frightened eyes, as the officer chasing him points to his chest and shoots.

Adam Toledo was 13 and now, thanks to the broadcast of the video taken by the policeman’s body camera, it is possible to reconstruct the last moments of his life. A tragedy that occurred on the night of March 29 and From which now emerge the most shocking details, angering the Hispanic community.

Protesters gathered in Chicago’s Logan Square Park on Friday night, then marched to the residence of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, an African American who called for calm.

Riots also broke out in Portland, Oregon, with looting and breaking of stained glass, during a demonstration against the death of a man at the hands of the police in this city on Friday morning. But protesters in Oregon also claimed responsibility for the Hispanic teenager killed in Chicago and Daunte Wright, a black man who was shot dead in a suburb of Minneapolis.

The murder of Adam Toledo was completed in seconds. In the video you can see Adam running with a gun in his hand in a dark alley pursued by the agent who points a flashlight at him, shouts to him to stop, to show him his hands. ”¡Bájala! ¡Bájala! “, we hear the policeman screaming, referring to the weapon that Adam holds in his right hand and which, stopping his race, he throws over a wooden fence. Then the child, already disarmed, turns around and raises his hands. But he didn’t even have time to say a word, to realize what was going on. In an instant, he’s on the floor, in his bloody shirt. Officer Eric Stillman, 34, fired a single fatal shot. Then he rushes and runs to the teenager and tries to revive him: “Stay with me! Stay with me!” He yells several times, realizing the gravity of the situation.. “Call an ambulance!” He almost moaned afterwards.

Too late. Soon after, Adam was declared dead on the spot. He will never return to the house where he lived with his mother and older brother in La Villita, a neighborhood in western Chicago where more than 80% of residents are of Mexican origin.

Adam had been away for days and that night of March 29, he was dating a 21-year-old boy, Rubén Román. Rubén reportedly fired a few shots, probably in-game, prompting the police to intervene. After a short career, Rubén ended up being arrested, probably after passing the gun to little Adam who fled and found himself lifeless.

Stories of angst among young people are the order of the day in a city like Chicago, where in the first three months of 2021 there have been 131 murders, never more since 2017. Anger is now on alert, in especially that of a Hispanic minority who have always felt in the crosshairs of the police as well as the African-American community.

Constable Stillman has been suspended for the time being and the mayor has called for calm amid fears anger could explode and the protests demanding justice for Adam come on top of the two cases that have shocked Minneapolis, the police murders by George. Floyd and Daunte Wright.

But all over the country they are raising their voices again to ask for a radical police reform, starting with the training of agents.

AFP and AP agencies

THE NATION