WEST SIDE — A video showing police officers pursuing men who were later arrested for the armed robbery of a West Side beauty store in 2012 was released Friday. The case drew attention because the story owner, Bassil Abdelal, was shot by police after the incident, and he later unsuccessfully sued police.
B&B Supply, a beauty store, was robbed by three men, Richie Cole, Omar Young and Leevon Carter, police said. The video shows officers chasing the men, as well as other people fleeing from the scene.
The March 2012 case became well known because the three officers shot Bassil Abdelal multiple times after Abdelal walked out of his store and picked up a handgun that was dropped by one of the robbers. That shooting cannot be seen in the video.
Abdelal claimed that he did not see the cops and he was trying to protect himself after his store was robbed. The police said that Abdelal did not put the gun down despite being ordered to do so several times.
Abdelal said during the trial that the police mistook him for one of the robbers and immediately opened fire.
A federal jury recently ruled in favor of the three police officers after Abdelal sued them for wrongful shooting.
The massive release of videos includes many open cases, some of which are the subjects of lawsuits. At a news conference Friday, IPRA boss Sharon Fairley stressed that videos do not paint a complete picture of what happened in each incident, and many lack context.
“It's really important for you to keep in mind that these materials may not convey all of the facts and considerations that are relevant [to an officer's conduct," she said.
The video and details in the case were released as part of a massive data dump by IPRA on Friday, showing documents and videos in more than 100 Chicago police misconduct cases.
The release comes after Mayor Rahm Emanuel's appointed Police Accountability Task Force called on the Chicago Police Department to acknowledge racism and fight the "code of silence" that keeps officers from being held accountable.
That task force also called for videos to be more readily released to the public, within 60-90 days.
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