Hundreds Protest Police Killing Of 13-Year-Old Adam Toledo In Chicago
Hundreds poured into the streets in Chicago on Friday evening, protesting the police killing of 13-year-old Adam Toledo.
The previous day, officials had released footage of the March 29 shooting, sparking outrage. Video showed the seventh-grader being pursued by police, then complying with orders by stopping and turning around with his hands in the air when Chicago police officer Eric Stillman shot him.
Protesters gathered in Logan Square, carrying signs that said “Justice for Adam” and “CPD, stop killing our children .” People chanted in unison: “Adam, we love you. We will not stop until there is justice for you.”
There’s sage burning and hundreds (at least) gathered at Logan Square Park for the #AdamToledo protest. Good time to remind everyone that my protest coverage comes with an explicit language warning @wttw pic.twitter.com/ka4uj9U1wj
— Evan Garcia (@EvanRGarcia) April 16, 2021
Gotta be at least 1000 ppl marching down Milwaukee in protest of the Chicago police department pic.twitter.com/YEFSdkgDB0
— Sam Kelly (@sgonzalezkelly) April 17, 2021
Hundreds are in Logan Square, Chicago, calling for justice for the family of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, fatally shot by Chicago police. “We all saw the video,” one organizer says. “We saw what we saw.” pic.twitter.com/tPN3ikxpRZ
— Grace Hauck (@grace_hauck) April 16, 2021
Hundreds have gathered in Chicago to protest the police killing of 13-year-old Adam Toledo pic.twitter.com/53CVZK8MzG
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) April 16, 2021
Earlier this week, prosecutors falsely said Toledo had been armed when he was shot, but later walked back the claim. Police bodycam video showed Toledo’s hands were empty and that he was holding them in the air when police shot him dead. Another video from a parking lot camera showed Toledo appearing to toss something behind a fence before putting his hands up.
“I don’t think it matters whether Adam is a choir boy, whether he is involved in some other untoward activity — the fact of the matter is that he was walking in the street and he was shot unarmed,” Adeena Weiss-Ortiz, the Toledo family’s attorney, said at a press conference Thursday. “If you’re shooting an unarmed child with his hands in the air, it is an assassination,” the attorney added.
The protests over the Latino child’s killing by police come just days after Daunte Wright, a Black 20-year-old, was shot dead by police in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on Sunday, sparking demonstrations there. And throughout this week, former police officer Derek Chauvin has been on trial in Minneapolis. Chauvin killed George Floyd, a Black man, by kneeling on his neck for nine minutes last summer.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.