Shots fired at us with the emergency. The latest threat cops face on the bloody streets of Chicago are the very young. Teens ages 13 through 17 are now being recruited by most of the street gangs to carry their weapons, mule their drugs, and in some cases do their killing for them. The youngest female killer in Chicago gang history is Jakara Barnes, aka KI, aka Little Snoop. Her life from the very beginning was surrounded with violence. When she was barely one, her father was gunned down out in front of their home. And years later, she witnessed the murder of 13-year-old Taekwan Tyler. She treated him as though he was her baby brother. And by the time she was 13 years old, she had lost a couple more friends to gang violence. And this started her relationship with STL EBT, the Tukville set of the gangster Disciples. They became her new family at age 13. She entered the gang life at the same time drill rap had taken off big time across Chicago and millions of dollars had flooded into the drill rap artists that became the de facto leaders of these gang sets. They purchased guns and financed their drug operations with cash from the music industry. The music industry made hundreds of millions of dollars off this violent and deadly music and continued promoting song after song that led to more killing. It was pure societal poison that made killings, drugs, and thuggery cool. This poison has spread like a forest fire over the decades, leading to thousands of shootings and murders. According to the CPD, Jakara was the prime suspect in at least 15 shootings and a couple of murders, mainly of rival gang members of the Wick City Oblak faction of the Black Disciple Street Gang. This little girl was knocking off grown men in the feared black disciple street gang. Her murder and shooting sprees embarrassed the gang and this is why she was killed. She was very effective. She snuck up on them before they knew what didn't. On April 11th, 2014, Jakara Barnes was shot multiple times and killed in an ambush by rival gang members. She was 17 years old. She was the most violent female hitter in Chicago gang history. In 2020, King Vaughn was killed outside a hookah lounge in Atlanta. A year after the old block legend's death, CPD released documents claiming he and two others killed Jakara Barnes. The Chicago police watched all of this unfold over this very violent 4-year period. And they must be asking themselves, what kind of men would allow a young girl to get involved in this type of life? [Music] And I think they know the answer to this question. The rap culture turned this young girl and many young men into what they describe themselves as being young savages that have left the civil society in the rear view mirror. They created a violent culture that is committing mass murder in the name of drill rap. And we now know why cops are so hesitant of these young gang members and are forced to treat them with extreme caution because they never know which of these violent kids could be the next Jakara Barnes. [Music] The Little Village neighborhood is one of several Hispanic gang strongholds in Chicago. It is home to a couple of gangs. The two largest are the Latin Kings and Gangster 26. These two gangs are constantly at war with each other and are surrounded on all sides by many different black street gangs that are also at war with these gangs in the village. According to the Chicago Crime Commission, the Sinaloa cartel uses Little Village as a launching point for the gangs to distribute drugs to other gangs across the city. My mother grew up in the village in the 1950s and 1960s when it was predominantly Italian and by the late 1970s, the demographics of the neighborhood changed from Italian to Hispanic. When I was young, my mom would take us shopping down 26th Street. It was once in the top five business districts in Chicago. The gang violence increased in the 1980s when President Reagan declared amnesty for nearly 3 million Mexican immigrants. And directly after this, the cartel planted their flag in the village. And the drugrelated violence has not stopped since. For nearly a decade, I worked just outside of Little Village and did business there. And I have firsthand experience on how things work in this neighborhood. The gangs have been terrorizing this community for decades. I have covered dozens of shootings in this neighborhood on the ground for nearly 8 years. The most recent gang shootouts are responsible for the murder of a little 8-year-old girl and the wounding of a 7-year-old girl and a three-year-old girl. And many teens and residents have been shot and killed by teen and adult gang members. Both male and female gang members are regularly shot and killed in the village. The average age of a gang member in the village is 15 to 23 years of age and most of the time they are legacy recruits. Cops have been battling the gangs in this neighborhood for decades. And the Little Village neighborhood regularly appears in the top 15 most violent neighborhoods in Chicago. And this is why cops are on edge and very weary of the young gang members that are armed to the teeth terrorizing this neighborhood. [Music] Going on going now. Okay. Can someone k please over there? In the line of duty, cops sometimes find a split-second decision can be lifechanging for all involved. I got a medical officers must make split seconds decisions when it comes to the use of deadly force and that is a heavy burden. This fatal police involved shooting took place on March 29th, 2021 at 2:30 a.m. A Chicago police unit was dispatched to the 2300 block of South Sawyer Avenue in the Little Village neighborhood due to a shot spotter alert that detected eight shots were fired from the location. When cops pulled up on the scene, they immediately caught sight of two men walking through an alley. One of the men was armed with a gun. The first man was quickly tackled and taken to the ground by officer Stillman. His partner stayed and cuffed him while he focused on the other suspect running down the alley with a gun. He repeatedly called for him to stop and show his hands. The suspect did finally stop near a break in a wooden fence at the end of the alley and a gun can be seen for a moment in his left hand along his side. Stillman again told him to drop the weapon and the suspect turned slightly and flipped the gun behind the fence. He then quickly raised his hands. At the exact second, Stillman fired one shot, striking him in the upper chest area. Shots fired. Shots fired. Get an ambulance up here now. Look at me. Officer Eric Stillman immediately requested emergency assistance and began chest compressions. He worked on the young man for quite some time as other officers arrived on the scene. Stay with me. Hey, stay with me. Hey, stay awake. Stay awake. Uh, press on. I'm going to start CPR. I'm not feeling a heartbeat. Go ahead. I'm trying as fast as I can. I got to get this chest seal on first. As fast as I can. This chest seal open. [Music] It's too thick. This old one. It became clear to Stillman this was not a man and looked to be a young teenager. But sadly, a short time later, he was pronounced dead on the scene. Give me a light. Give me a light now. Give me a light. Give me a light. More facts in this incident came to light through investigators, prosecutors, and the release of the body cam footage that painted a more sinister picture. Before cops arrived on the scene, a nearby poor quality school surveillance camera captured the moment shots were being fired by the pair. According to investigators, 21-year-old Ruben Roman fired the shots. He can be seen walking up to the corner, taking a shooting stance as a vehicle drove by, and then fired eight shots while standing next to Adam Toledo. After the shots were fired, the gun ended up in the hands of Adam Toledo. Roman and Toledo ran north on Sawyer and ducked into an alley near 23rd Street. About a minute later, cops spotted the two and saw one armed with a gun and the one that was armed was Adam Toledo. Please stop right [ __ ] show me your [ __ ] hand. After the body cam video was released, it showed Stillman clearly made the wrong split-second decision when he shot Adam Toledo. He had the gun in his hand down along his left side, then tossed it just before he put his hands up. Shots fired. Shots fired. Ambulance up here now. And it would get much worse for this cop. When him and his partner walked back behind the fence where the weapon was, they both flashed their flashlights on it. It was about 5 ft away from the body. And at this point, things got even worse when he saw the slide on the weapon was locked back, indicating it was empty. He also realized by the location Adam did not have it in his hand and threw it before he shot him. and he would find out two days later how old Adam Toledo was. Had Officer Stillman got a clear view of the gun at any time during the incident, he would have saw the slide was back and the 2-in area of the barrel was bare with no slide covering it. And I'm sure had he seen the weapon clearly, he would have concluded that the gun was empty or jammed. And had he waited just one more second and not fired, he would have seen there was no gun in either of Adam's hands when he raised them. Had he seen the weapon, it would have turned out much different for both of them. Look at me. Look at me. One theory of why he fired so quickly was he feared being shot because he had no place to take cover. And I'm sure Officer Stillman was also aware of last year's stats. 14 cops were shot and cops were shot at 79 times in 20120. The war on cops has been raging since the Ferguson, Missouri incident in 2014. And the fear in some cops minds is real and rightfully so. And this shooting could very well be a silent consequence from all of this. Put your hand behind your back. While in custody, 21-year-old Ruben Roman later denied knowing who Adam was during an interview with police several hours later. He provided a fake name for Adam and claimed he did not know anything about what just happened because he was waiting for a train. When Roman was taken into custody, he dropped a pair of red gloves on the ground that later tested positive for gunshot residue, and so did Adam Toledo's hands. And the Ruger 9mm handgun that Adam tossed matched the shell casings that were later recovered from the scene where the shots were fired from. [Music] from that team that was in that car and they're busy so they going to take a while to come here. I don't understand. He's he's got to be some kind of king. Yeah, cuz they came through this 26 probably captain from that cuz the victim at the hospital right now is 26. The 26 and that's probably retaliation. He says he's trying to get the Maywood on the pink. So you guys want to go with him? My partner is Okay. Here is how the Chicago justice system failed young Adam Toledo, not once, but twice. CPD claims Roman is a member of the Latin King Street Gang. And he brought this 13-year-old boy out with him at 2:30 in the morning to shoot at a car with rival gang members in it from the street gang 26. Cops described this as a gang initiation of sorts, preparing Adam to do shootings. The car they shot at sped off. Earlier, a rival 26 member was shot in a car nearby. He refused to talk to cops about who shot him while being treated at the hospital. The shooting Roman and Toledo were involved in was connected to the earlier incident. According to social media, Adam was called Little Homicide and Baby Diablo by some of the Latin King members. According to the CPD, Adam had a fresh Latin King gang tattoo on his arm at the time of his death. Roman was in possession of a weapon while on gun offender probation, and he fired this gun eight times at a car on a city street with this little kid standing right next to him. And the empty 9mm Ruger ended up in the hands of Adam Toledo. And none of this could have happened had Roman not been given probation on that gun charge. Up here now, the biggest problem in Chicago are gang shootings and killings. And the question is, why does the justice system keep letting documented gang members charged with gun crimes back out on the streets? They know where gang members with guns end, with the shooting and killing of human beings. A couple of things are now very clear. Adam was a kid that was easily influenced by the gang life. You could see by the way he was dressed and the company he was keeping. He was all in on the gang life. And that night he went out with the child gang recruiter and this got him killed. The cop that shot him made the split-second decision to shoot at who he thought was still armed and suspected of firing that gun minutes earlier. And the outcome shows it was the wrong split-second decision. When you see Stillman feverishly working on young Adam trying to save his life and then you see him later sitting in the schoolyard after seeing the empty weapon on the ground, you can see he knows the decision he made was the wrong one and it was going to change many lives, including his own. Roman was charged in the Toledo case with felony reckless discharge of a firearm, unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, and endangerment of a child, and he was held on $150,000 bond. In November of 2022, Ruben Roman was found not guilty of these charges. Judge Burns said that the grainy surveillance video and forensic evidence presented by prosecutors did not prove that Roman shot at a passing car moments before police encountered him in Toledo walking in a nearby alley and also could not prove that Roman held the weapon at any time. And it is clear the justice system failed miserably in this case and let a gang kid recruiter back out on the street. And the truth is Adam Toledo was being groomed to be a killer for the gang like Jakara Barnes. Except Adam never made it through the beginning stages of the process. Officer Stillman had no way of knowing Adam Toledo was only 13 years old when he shot him and that the weapon he was carrying was empty. At the end of the day, there are no winners in situations like this. Adam Toledo lost his life. His family lost their son. Officer Stillman will never be the same. And I know this firsthand because tragedies involving kids never leave you. And unfortunately, this will haunt him for the rest of his life. No criminal charges have been brought against Officer Stillman. But in October of 2022, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, known as COPA, recommended that officer Eric Stillman be fired. And now he is waiting for the final hearing, the dismissal hearing. This fatal police involved shooting has been classified unjustified due to the fact the teen was unarmed when he was shot and killed. And I believe it was not done with malice. It was just an instinctive survival driven reaction by officer Stillman. Unfortunately, it was the wrong decision. We cannot and will not push the foot pursuit policy reform off for another day. The independent monitor tracking Chicago police reform found officers here engage in seven per day. From March through December of last year that totaled over,300 and 30 of them involved some form of deadly force. Mayor, I am directing that a new policy be in place before the summer. And it must reflect the input of focus groups of officers and the community. You pull up on a subject, by the time you rifle through in your head all the dos and don'ts of that new policy that would come out, the offender is going to be long gone. It's a joke. It makes no sense. Law enforcement is instantaneous action. Quite often, more times than not. So, what do you think you're going to do? All you're doing is giving the criminals of this city more breathing room to not only now they know they just drive away and we're not going to chase them in a vehicle. Now they know just run away and we're not going to chase him on foot. How are you ever going to catch a criminal responsible for crime ever with this policy and this whole mindset in the line of duty cops find out apprehending criminals is a big problem for their political bosses. This fatal police involved shooting took place on March 31st, 2021 in the Portage Park neighborhood. Two days before this fatal police involved shooting, officers Evan Solano and his partner Sammy and Carnosion saw a white Jeep parked at a BP gas station without a front license plate, but it had a temporary rear plate. As they pulled up, they immediately recognized the driver, 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez. They followed him. Then they ran the temporary plate on the vehicle he was driving and found he had a suspended driver's license. Alvarez sped up and took off on cops and Solano and his partner were ordered not to chase him, so they used the information from his license plate to get his address. And later they went to his house to arrest him, but he was not there. The night of the shooting, cops encountered Alvarez again, except this time he was on foot near a gas station on the 5200 block of West Addison. Cops pulled in the gas station parking lot behind Alvarez and attempted to arrest him. When Alvarez saw the cops driving up behind him, he threw his cup and a white bag to the ground, then grabbed the front of his waistband area of his jeans and began running through the parking lot. When Alvarez grabbed his waistband, cops could see a bulge from a gun, so they chased him on foot for over a minute. While he was running, he pulled out an FN 9mm semi-automatic pistol with a laser sight. During the chase, he had over a minute to ditch the gun, but he didn't. When Officer Solano turned the corner, Alvarez had slowed down because he slipped. And then Solano caught up to him and started yelling commands to drop the weapon. He tried to recover when he fell and that's when the first shot was fired. And when the second shot was fired, he raised the gun and started to extend it out in front of him. By the time the third shot was fired, he still had the gun in his hand. And the third shot struck him in the back. And the fourth or fifth shot struck him in the leg. And by the time the fifth shot was fired, he finally dropped the gun and fell to the ground. You had a gun. They immediately secured the scene. Solano then called for an ambulance. Then they started treating his wounds. Alvarez was taken to Illinois Masonic where he later was pronounced dead. There are a couple of reasons why officer Solano was so quick to defend himself against this young man. And that's because Solano and his partner had some previous run-ins with Alvarez. In April 2020, both officers responded to a domestic call involving Alvarez and the mother of his three-year-old daughter. According to the police report, he threatened to kill his girlfriend, and he was charged with assault and taken into custody. After the domestic incident, Solano and his partner encountered Alvarez again when they pulled over a car. the reason one of the individuals in the car was identified as a person of interest in a recent gang related shooting and Alvarez was in the car. The occupants of the car were known gang members from a north side gang called the Latin Brothers. They have been around for decades and are very well entrenched in the north side neighborhood of Portage Park. And Alvarez was not arrested in this incident. And that's how these two cops knew Alvarez was associated with the Latin Brother Street Gang. And this made them very weary of him. 7 months after Alvarez's death, his brother Alexander Martinez was shot and killed in a shooting on Interstate 290 near Harlem Avenue. He was an established member of the Latin Brothers from Knox and Berry Street, the same set Alvarez was running with. Immediately after the shooting, the protest started and so did the misinformation campaign. He obviously got scared and he started running and he had a gun on him, but he was never pulling it out as community members called for further investigation. I think it was a misuse of uh police force. Counterprotesters came by to show their support for Chicago police. This is a very dangerous city right now and we're putting it all on their backs. After the shooting, Copa, the Civilian Office of Accountability, stripped officer Solano of his police powers and claimed the foot pursuit was not justified and the decision to chase Alvarez led to his death. Copa recommended Solano be fired, calling the improper use of deadly force an egregious act requiring severe consequences. Copa also recommended that his partner receive a substantial suspension up to and including being fired from the department. And the action taken against Solano by Copa, I am sure was because of a cell phone video of Solano pulling his weapon while in uniform. He claimed he was protecting himself from an angry man during a road rage incident. He never raised the gun, just held it down along his side as a deterrent. Get down. 7 that Solano is also the man in this cell phone video recorded last week in Logan Square. That video shows a 29-year-old officer with a gun in his hand arguing with another driver. Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown disagreed with Copa's finding and instead recommended a 20-day suspension for both cops. This went to the Chicago Police Board and a short time later, board member Steven Block issued his decision. Block said chasing after Alvarez and Solano's decision to shoot him were objectively reasonable and neither officer went against their training on foot chases by pursuing him. Why are you shooting me? You had a gun. Hey, get on the ground. Get on the ground. See Davis shots fired by the police. Copa's oversight board in the Alvarez family refused to acknowledge the fact that he had an illegal gun with a laser on it in his hand and refused to drop the gun during the one minute chase and only dropped it after they shot him. This was Cook County State's Attorney Kim Fox's charging recommendation in this case. You had a gun. their families as well as the families of the officers and the offices officers themselves are permanently altered. Cook County State's Attorney Kim Fox announcing the decision not to press criminal charges and the difficulties Chicago police face with split-second life or death decisions. The timing of these actions was within one second. Hey, drop the gun. Drop the gun. While pursuing Mr. Alvarez, neither officer had unholstered his weapon. Chicago police officer Evan Solano and his partner cleared of criminal wrongdoing. Fox says investigators determining that Solano, who fired five shots, had reason to fear for his life and the life of his partner. But Fox says he violated police foot pursuit policies. It is important to highlight that the officers themselves created the conditions which the use of deadly force became necessary. And Kim Fox just could not help herself. She blamed the cops for pursuing an armed criminal suspect with an illegal gun, but failed to mention the fact it all started the minute he ran and then pulled out a gun, becoming a fleeing criminal. Alvarez's mother filed a lawsuit against the city and the CPD. I'm good. I'm good for now. Just um give me another tourniquet right here. All right. Come on, man. Hang in there. Stay. Stay with me, buddy. Hang in there. Right there where my finger. Get it all the way up. All the way up. All the way up here. And get Make sure it's tight. Make sure it's [ __ ] tight. Get it up. Tighter. Tighter. Pull it. Pull. Got pressure on that. Tight. Real tight. Real tight. Keep going. Just keep spinning. Keep going. Keep going. Spin that till you can. Hang in there, dude. Hang in there. The grief of the family is understandable, but they refused to acknowledge the facts in this case. A handful of people rallied in support of the Alvarez family and the public release of the video. As his mother indicated already, it has really left us with more questions than answers. But I know what I saw. and I saw Chicago police officers shoot their son as he ran away from them. The gangs of Chicago are responsible for corrupting the youths of this city and gang members with illegal guns have been terrorizing these communities for decades. There are approximately 80,000 to 100,000 gang members across Chicago. And according to PBS, gang violence is responsible for nearly 30,000 murders and a couple hundred,000 shootings in Chicago over the past 50 years. The reason why gangs flourish and continue to corrupt teens is because the media, politicians, and families of these young men are programmed to ignore the real problem that is right before their very eyes. And the only solution they continually come up with is to change every aspect of policing. And they are ignorant when it comes to criminals with illegal guns. And the violent gang society in Chicago is quickly dragging the rest of the city down. The Alvarez and Toledo cases are responsible for the revised footchase policy that was put in place in the summer of 2022. The politicians now want cops to stop chasing criminals that commit minor crimes. They claim it will be safer for cops and the community. And this policy would not have changed a damn thing in the Toledo and Alvarez cases because they both had guns. This policy does not restrict cops from chasing armed suspects. It only changes the reason why cops can pursue them. The truth is this policy creates more paperwork for cops that chase a suspect on foot. They now must fill out a lengthy bicycle pursuit form similar to the one in the consent decree that makes cops fill out another lengthy form anytime they pull over a vehicle for any reason. It puts cops at their desk filling out endless unnecessary bureaucratic paperwork and leaves cops with less time to police the streets of Chicago. This fatal police involved shooting was a closearter type confrontation that left officer Solano with no choice but to fire first. And unlike the Adam Toledo incident, the split-second decision in this case turned out to be the right one because Alvarez was an armed threat to cops made clear in the body cam video. [ __ ] And this fatal police involved shooting has been classified justified. Right here. Right here. I have to walk up, I think, in the line of duty, cops sometimes respond to calls related to fellow offduty officers that become victims of a crime. This non-fatal police involved shooting took place on March 31st, 2021. Cops responded to a call of a break-in and a person shot on the 3100 block of West Bell Plane in the Albany Park neighborhood. This situation started when 33-year-old Joseé Mendoza wandered into an apartment building and hung around the vestibule for a couple of minutes. He was drunk and did not know where he was. According to the statement from offduty Chicago cop Ewan Smith, Mendoza knocked on my door. As I approached to open it, he pushed it in and I tried to close it and he just pushed. He forced his way in and I didn't know what. At this point, he shot him. The security video does not have a good angle of the incident. It shows Mendoza knocking on Smith's door and he can be seen crouching down and then the door cracked open and he stood up and it looks as though he steps into the apartment and that's when Officer Smith shot him in the face and then he fell and began bleeding from his face. Mendoza was not armed with a weapon of any kind. Now, there are two sides to this story. And Smith's side of the story is he was protecting his wife and their 21-month-old daughter. And he had no way of knowing if Mendoza was armed with a concealed gun or knife as he forced entry into the apartment and that's why he shot him. Go ahead. Then there is Mendoza's side of the story. He admitted he was so intoxicated he did not know where he was. And according to the surveillance video, he couldn't even stand and claims he made an honest drunken mistake when he tried to force his way into the home of Officer Smith. He also admitted he thought he was at a friend's house. Mendoza is partially responsible for all that followed, but there are a few things that do not look right. It appears that Mendoza was kicked by Smith a short time after he shot him while he was crouched over face first on the ground. He fell over and then quickly sat back up and then fell face first into the apartment and stayed there. Then the video clip ends. You can see in the video the door opening and closing at least three times by the shadow of light that appears on the wall. It looks as though he was still being attacked by the cop after he was shot. According to the timestamp on the video, it indicates after Smith closed the door the third time, he did not come out for over 6 minutes and can be seen opening the door of the apartment and stepping over a bloodied Mendoza after police arrived. He had multiple arrest warrants and a pending DUI case. He was charged with burglary, home invasion, trespassing, and was held on a $1 million bond. Mendoza filed a lawsuit against Officer Smith and the city of Chicago. Mendoza tried to force his way into Officer Smith's apartment, scaring his family while they were watching TV. Officer Smith was relieved of his police powers and dismissed from the force in June of 2021. Hangight. The police board determined it was an unnecessary excessive use of force by Smith because Mendoza posed no threat and had no weapon. This nonfatal offduty police involved shooting has been classified as questionable due to a missing video perspective and the way Mendoza was treated by this cop after he was shot on the ground bleeding. And there is the fact the cop was protecting his family from Mendoza, a wanted criminal and irresponsible drunk that tried to force his way into his home. 11. This fatal offduty police involved shooting took place on January 17th, 2023 on the 1300 block of West 90th Street in the Brainer neighborhood. The situation started when four individuals started arguing outside a female Chicago police officer's apartment building. The female officer came out of her building and intervened. She tried to tell the group it was okay and to calm down and three of the four did calm down and walked away. But 39year-old Levonne Smith stayed behind and continued to exchange words with her. As she turned to walk away, Smith grabbed her from behind and then grabbed her gun and tried to disarm her. Watch this. Oh [ __ ] I'm sorry. You got me. You got me. Your dumb ass. Okay. Okay. Damn. You shot me for real. Damn, baby. I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. Okay. Let me go right now. Okay. I'm sorry. Damn, baby. Now your dumb ass go to jail. Damn. I'm sorry. Call the police. Call the police right now. I'm sorry, baby. Your dumb ass I shoot you, didn't I? Yeah, you did. Didn't I? I don't want that. Did I? I wanted, baby. Did not just say I'll kill you. I'm sorry. Did not just say that [ __ ] Did not just say that [ __ ] I'm sorry. [ __ ] you. You just I don't want to die, baby. Please. You call police. I just dumb ass. Just told you I shoot your ass. Tried to rob me. Tried to help your dumb ass. Call the police. You just tried to rob me. The off-duty unidentified female officer was taken to Little Company of Mary Hospital to be treated for a laceration above her right eye and Smith was shot in his hand, abdomen, and right hip. He was charged with attempted robbery and aggravated battery. Two days later, the charges were dropped because he died from his injuries. After the surveillance videos were released by COPA, the Smith family filed a $10 million lawsuit against the officer and the city of Chicago. The female officer was placed on routine administrative duties for 30 days and she will not face any charges in this shooting. This shooting has been classified justified due to the fact the officer identified herself as a cop and warned Smith about what she was going to do to him. Clearly didn't matter to him because he proceeded to assault her and tried to take her weapon away. Damn, baby. I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. Okay. Right now. Okay. I'm sorry. Damn, babe. Now your dumb ass fall. In the line of duty, when cops are caught lying, it erodess the public trust in the police department. This nonfatal police involved shooting took place on July 22nd, 2022 on the 1,00 block of West 18th Street in the Pilsson neighborhood. Two cops from the major accident unit were on their way to the Chicago Police Training Academy in an unmarked squad car. While in route, they saw a group of males standing on the corner. Sergeant Christopher Leo and Officer Ruben Rienos passed by the group and then put their car in reverse and backed up to check them out. And two of the four men walked towards the car. And it looks as though a few words were exchanged as the second man turned to run away. Officer Ruben Rieno stuck his gun out the window while 23-year-old Miguel Medina holds his hand up and has his other hand halfway up. Officer Rianos and Sergeant Leopoulos immediately open fire, striking Medina in his lower back and right leg. And then both cops jump out of the car and the other man fired a couple of shots at cops while running away. Both cops then opened fire again, missing the shooter, but hit a 36-year-old man in the leg that was walking back from the gym with his friend. Sergeant Leopoulos gave chase and shortly after returned to the scene without the 17-year-old shooter. Officer Rieno stayed by the car as Medina lies in the street bleeding out. Neither cop administered aid. Medina was taken into custody for aggravated assault of an officer, but was eventually released because the evidence was insufficient. And they had no body cams running at the time of the encounter. And it was basically their word against the suspect's word. But little did these cops know, there was video and audio of the incident. At first, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown came out and told reporters that the gunman shot first down this alley right here. He fired at us a couple times. And it said now is wearing an orange polo, male, Hispanic. But when the video and audio captured by a local business was released by COPA, Brown quickly changed his tune. Now, there are some things wrong with this incident. The first thing is, did they announce themselves as cops when confronting the two men? They were in an unmarked car and they had no uniforms or vests on. And maybe the two mistook them as rivals from another hood. And the other thing is it looks as though the 17-year-old in the black hoodie bumps up behind Medina and might have pulled something out of his waistband and then goes to stick whatever it was in his pouch and then quickly turns and runs and then turned around after cops shot Medina and fired a couple of shots at cops and then they returned fire. It is pretty clear both cops got a look at the gun the 17-year-old was holding or pulling out of his buddy's waistband. Medina had both hands in clear view for cops. He had a wine bottle in one hand and a phone in the other. So why did they open fire on him? The kid with the gun in his hand was the one they should have shot at but didn't. Shortly after this incident, both cops made false claims in the official report. They marked boxes showing that an offender fired the first shot. And Sergeant Leopoulos also marked a box in his report indicating they were ambushed with no warning. I believe in these two cops minds, the sight of that gun possibly being pointed at them gave them the right to open fire. After two unarmed people were shot and the one that did shoot at cops got away, that's when they realized they had a big problem. The video does not support cop's account of what happened that day. Both cops were interviewed by the state's attorney's office a short time later. And the officers changed their stories and said they didn't know who fired first, but claimed the young man pointed a gun at them before they shot at Medina, who was clearly unarmed. And if in fact the 17-year-old pointed the gun at cops, why did they wait to open fire after the suspect with the gun turned, took five steps, and ran off? It doesn't make sense. The big problem here is that these two rotten cops were willing to let the state's attorney's office charge Medina with aggravated battery to a peace officer to save their own asses. Leiaopoulos and Renoso both face up to 30 years in prison on charges of aggravated battery with a firearm, aggravated discharge of a firearm, and official misconduct. They were both released on bond and have been stripped of their police powers. Had they told the truth in the very beginning, it would have made all the difference in the world. But they chose to lie instead. And due to the lie, this non-fatal police involved shooting has been categorized as unjustified. But the shots fired at the suspect that fired on them is justified. The 17-year-old that fired at cops was eventually caught, and police wanted the teen charged with attempted murder, but no charges have been filed against him by the state's attorney's office. In the final episode of In the Line of Duty, Chicago highlighted our bad cops that have disgraced the badge and good cops that gave their lives in the line of duty. And a thorough examination has been done of Chicago's failed leadership and bad policies that are leading policing down the road of destruction. Federal intervention has made the department less effective and has become a bureaucratic nightmare for cops. And over the past three years, veteran cops have been fleeing the department by the thousands due to these radical policies and lack of support. And because of this and much more, the future of policing in Chicago is now in serious trouble. [Music] Hey, hey, hey.