Family of Dexter Reed files lawsuit against City of Chicago, officers involved in deadly shootout
CHICAGO - Dexter Reed's mother filed a lawsuit against the City of Chicago and the five officers who were involved in the deadly shootout last month.
Reed, 26, was killed in a shootout with police after he was pulled over on Thursday, March 21 on Chicago's West Side.
Protests and demands for accountability followed when Chicago's police oversight agency released footage of the incident earlier this month.
At 6 p.m. on the day of the incident, police attempted to pull over a vehicle near the intersection of North Avers Avenue and West Ferdinand Street.
COPA said five officers pulled Reed over for allegedly not wearing a seatbelt. Body camera video shows officers approaching Reed who was in a white SUV and telling him to roll down the car window.
The officers involved were in an unmarked squad car and dressed in plain clothing. When Reed did not comply with verbal commands, officers pointed their guns at him.
COPA said video footage appears to confirm initial reports that Reed fired first, striking the officer, and four officers returned fire. The oversight agency said officers returned fire 96 times over a 41-second period. Reed got out of his car and fell to the ground.
Reed's mother, Nicole Banks, officially filed a lawsuit on April 24 demanding a jury trial in the case of her son's death at the hands of Chicago police.
The lawsuit named all five officers involved in the shootout and their badge numbers. Alexandra Giampapa (Star 13853), Thomas Spanos (Star 3110), Victor Pacheco (Star 18337), Gregory Saint Louis (Star 5153) and Aubrey Webb (Star 5105) were all accused of being "outrageously escalatory."
The complaint stated that Dexter lived with physical and mental disabilities.
"He was diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder, and this condition adversely affected Dexter’s ability to work, to process and remember information, and to communicate," the complaint said.
The family alleged that the five officers who pulled Reed over never announced that they were police officers. They also claimed that the initial stop was unlawful.
The video showed the officers boxing Reed's car in and approaching him in their plain clothing.
According to the lawsuit, after the initial shooting with Dexter inside the car, one of the officers shot him at least three more times as he lay on the ground unarmed and lifeless.
The complaint claimed that for many "critical minutes," the officers refused Reed lifesaving aid.
It is also alleged that Chicagoans have filed at least 41 complaints against Officers Giampapa, Spanos, Pacheco, Saint Louis, and Webb alleging that these officers engaged in unlawful traffic stops. The day they stopped Reed, the officers had been cleared of wrongdoing in only three of those 41 complaints.
The family and their attorneys, Andrew M. Stroth of Action Injury Law Group and Steven A. Hart of Hart McLaughlin & Eldridge spoke outside the 11th District Police Headquarters on Wednesday morning.
"It seems as if slavery is still going on the way we're done here in the streets," Porscha Banks, Dexter's sister said.
The full complaint can be found HERE or below.
