BRONZEVILLE — The officer whose body camera was not recording during a fatal police shooting of an unarmed man last week did not intentionally interfere with the camera system, Chicago's top cop said Tuesday.
Police fatally shot Paul O'Neal, 18, in South Shore on Thursday after the man sideswiped a police squad car while driving a stolen Jaguar. Three officers opened fire on the car as it drove away from officers, and O'Neal was fatally struck, police said. A weapon was never recovered from the car.
The three officers involved in the shooting were equipped with body cameras, but Supt. Eddie Johnson said Monday that the officer who fatally shot O'Neal had a camera that was not recording during the incident.
Johnson said Tuesday that there is no evidence to suggest the camera was tampered with so as not to record the incident.
"We don't think there was any intent to defeat any systems," Johnson said at an unrelated press conference at police headquarters Tuesday.
In the days following the shooting, Johnson moved to relieve three unnamed officers of their police duties for violating department policy. That includes the officer who shot and killed O'Neal and two others who opened fire.
Johnson did everything in his power to discipline the officers, and further discipline will be in part determined by the Independent Police Review Authority, which is currently investigating the shooting, the department said.
There is video footage of the shooting from other body cameras as well as dash-mounted cameras in squad cars on the scene, Johnson said.
"There's a lot of footage available from the particular incident, so it's under review of IPRA right now," Johnson said. "Going forward, I don't think you'll find any intentional misconduct."
The officers involved the shooting had received the body cameras within about 10 days of the incident, according to the department. Depending on how many shifts the officers worked in the period, the cameras were very new to them, Johnson said.
"The body cameras are new to CPD," he said. "These officers were just given these cameras so there is going to be some learning curve with them but we don't anticipate large scale problems."
Activists have called for video of the shooting to be released immediately, but police said it will likely stay private for 60 days, which gives IPRA time to investigate the matter.
O'Neal's family has filed a federal civil rights suit against the department.
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