A Chicago police officer followed a man off a CTA subway train after he was seen walking between train cars, and then shot the man twice during a struggle inside a busy downtown Red Line station during the Friday afternoon rush hour, according to police.
Two officers were taken off the street pending an investigation of the encounter, part of which was captured on video that Mayor Lori Lightfoot called “extremely disturbing” and which police officials suggested could be part of a criminal probe.
FBI, prosecutors reviewing police shooting of man in Red Line station for possible criminal charges
It all happened just hours after interim Chicago Police Supt. Charlie Beck joined Lightfoot and CTA president Dorval Carter to announce a new security plan for the mass transit system, which has seen a rash of shootings in recent weeks.
Lightfoot said in a Friday evening tweet that “with the strong caveat that one perspective does not depict the entirety of the incident, the video is extremely disturbing and the actions by these officers are deeply concerning.”
The sequence started shortly after 4 p.m., when two officers assigned to CPD’s Mass Transit Unit saw a man “jumping from train to train,” police said. They followed him off the train and approached him in the station, still underground, Deputy Supt. Barbara West said.
Both officers used stun guns as they tried to arrest him, then “at some point during the incident, one of the officers discharged a weapon, striking the subject twice,” West said.
Shortly after the shooting, a two-minute cellphone video began circulating on social media, showing both officers on top of the man, struggling with him on the ground near an escalator as they try to handcuff him.
At one point in the video, an officer appears to use pepper spray near the man’s face, and a deployed stun gun rests on the ground nearby.
One of the officers yells, “Give me your hands! Give me your hands!” before shouting, “Stop resisting!” seven times in a row.
The man eventually gets to his feet, stumbling backward, and the same officer can be heard yelling “shoot him” to the other officer.
Originally Posted by parishioner
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