jonathan ballew

Absence of Proof

With no video documentation, the facts in the police shooting of Latrell Allen remain in dispute

BY JONATHAN BALLEW

ILLUSTRATION BY MELL MONTEZUMA

In 2016 then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that by 2017 all Chicago police officers would be equipped with body cameras. Body cameras have become the number-one tool for police departments across the nation to remain accountable. By providing video footage of encounters with the public, they are intended to keep both citizens and officers safe from false narratives. Though their efficacy remains a matter of debate, one thing is clear: they only work if they are worn and activated.

On Sunday, August 9, at around 2:30 pm, in Englewood, CPD officers shot and wounded a man who allegedly shot at them while fleeing. But no video exists of the incident, as none of the officers involved were wearing body cameras.

The man shot, twenty-year-old Latrell Allen, has been charged with two counts of attempted murder and one count of unlawful possession of a weapon. He allegedly fired two shots at officers before they returned fire, hitting Allen. He was eventually transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center.

The man’s brother, Earl Allen, told the Sun-Times that he had been with Latrell and several others at Moran Park, at 57th and Racine, and that someone in the group made a comment to officers in a police vehicle, which led to a pursuit.

“My brother ain’t fired at no police,” he told the Sun-Times.

On Monday, the Weekly spoke with Englewood resident Keith Smith, fortynine, who said he was hanging out near Moran Park, close to where the shooting happened.

Smith said a police vehicle came up on Allen in an intimidating manner, with great speed and jumping a curb as it approached him. “They didn’t have to roll up on him like that even if they thought he had a gun,” he said. “I think it caused him to panic.”

Smith said he saw Allen turn a corner and then heard gunshots, but did not see the shooting.

The facts of the case are widely disputed between the police officers who were involved and Allen’s defense. The state says that officers recovered a gun with shell casing after following a trail of blood to Allen’s home. Allen’s public defender said on Tuesday that Allen was shot in the cheek and back; the bond proffer says he was shot in the cheek and in “the side area.”

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) told the Weekly that there was no video evidence of the shooting from officer body cameras or surveillance POD cameras.

“Preliminary investigative efforts have determined the involved Chicago Police Officers assigned to the newly created Community Safety Team did not have body worn cameras,” said a spokesperson for COPA in a statement.

In July CPD Superintendent David Brown announced a newly created “Community Safety Team” that would comprise almost 300 officers on the South and West Sides. “Let me be clear, this is not a roving strike force like CPD has had in the past,” Brown said in July.

Brown said the team would receive special training in crisis intervention and community policing and 1st and 4th Amendment rights. He said the team would focus on initiatives like peace marches, prayer circles, and food drives. “This team will be community policing based and community policing at its finest,” he said during the press conference.

In an op-ed, the Weekly wrote last month, “Some of the most corrupt and abusive CPD officers came from this very kind of unit.”

On Sunday, officers from the Community Safety Team began a foot pursuit of Allen that would end in an alleged shootout. They were deployed without any body cameras.

The Weekly asked CPD if it is standard procedure for officers on the Community Safety Team not to be equipped with body cameras. CPD said they have been “actively working” to equip the Community Safety Team with body cameras and that they “have prioritized all officers who are a part of these teams to receive body-worn cameras under the 2021 budget if they don’t already have one.”

According to CPD’s body camera policy, “The decision to electronically record a law-enforcement related encounter is mandatory, not discretionary.”

A source within CPD told the Weekly that part of the problem was that the policing contract under the previous administration is restrictive, and prohibits the sharing of body cameras by officers who are on different shifts.

But University of Chicago law professor Craig Futterman disagreed with CPD’s assessment. Futterman focuses on civil rights and police accountability and was one of the lead attorneys on the communitybased lawsuit that ultimately led to the current consent decree.

Futterman said that not equipping the Community Safety Team with body cameras “has to be an intentional decision” by CPD leadership.

He said that the issue of which units in CPD are equipped with body cameras is “an issue that hasn’t gotten enough public attention.”