Graphic video of Chicago pig stomping on the lifeless body of unarmed black teenager Paul O’Neal...

Report: Paul O'Neal shot after officer said he reached for waistband

A Chicago police officer who fatally shot Paul O'Neal after he crashed a reportedly stolen Jaguar into two police vehicles said in a report that he shot the 18-year-old after he saw him reaching into his waistband, and after he "perceived" shots had come from the teen.

That disclosure was found in heavily redacted police reports related to the July 28 incident that were released by the Chicago Police Department on Friday, a week after the city, with unprecedented swiftness, released several video clips that captured parts of the confrontation between the officers and the unarmed teen.

The officers' names and badge numbers are redacted in the 61 pages of police reports obtained by the Tribune through a Freedom of Information Act request. But the documents included information that showed that two of the officers involved in the shooting in the South Shore neighborhood have three years of experience with the Police Department, and one of the officers joined the force two years ago.

According to a Tactical Response Report, filled out by police whenever they use force against a suspect, the officer who fired the fatal shots said that O'Neal "intentionally rammed his vehicle into (responding officers') vehicle while numerous shots were simultaneously heard coming from the direction of the offender's vehicle.

"During the pursuit offender failed to comply with verbal commands while reaching into his waistband," the report states.

In answering who fired their weapon first, the officer's statement reads, "Ro (responding officer) perceived shots to be coming from Of (offender)."

But O'Neal had not been armed, and videos show that the bullets coming at some officers may have been coming from other officers as they fired at O'Neal's fleeing car.

The officer who shot O'Neal in the back joined the department in October 2012. He fired five shots at O'Neal and was about five to 10 feet away from him when he fired the first shot, according to the report.

One of the other officers fired nine shots and was within five feet from the Jaguar when he first opened fire during the incident, the reports state. A third officer fired one shot from more than 15 feet away, the reports state.

Those two officers were in the first police vehicle to confront the Jaguar, shortly before it slammed into the other police SUV.

Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson moved quickly to strip the three of their powers, citing potential policy violations. One report released Friday shows that a supervisor marked a box indicating the shooting was not within policy about 6:30 a.m. July 29, within 12 hours of the incident.

On Aug. 5, the Independent Police Review Authority released nine video clips from police dashboard and body cameras that showed apparent procedural errors by the three officers who opened fire at O'Neal as he fled in a reportedly stolen 2002 Jaguar convertible and then on foot near East 74th Street and South Merrill Avenue.

O'Neal's shooting marks an early test of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's pledge to reform policing and oversight, and transparency has been central to his announcements about his plans. While the city moved quickly to publicly release the videos and pull the officers off the streets, the videos document apparent tactical errors of the kind that have long troubled the department.

The videos show the chaos that ensued after O'Neal, driving a car reportedly stolen from Bolingbrook, clipped a police SUV and parked car in the South Shore neighborhood. Officers fired several shots at the fleeing sports car before it barreled into a police SUV down the block, the videos showed. Other officers appeared to be directly in the line of fire when police shot at the fleeing vehicle.

Departmental policy specifically bans shooting at a car when it is the lone threat to an officer or others.

After O'Neal ran from the Jaguar, police chased him into a backyard, firing about five more shots, the video clips show. O'Neal died of a gunshot wound to the back, authorities said.

While the body camera of the officer who fired at O'Neal in the yard was not recording as he fired the shots, it was turned on after the shooting. The cameras nonetheless captured potentially damning comments by at least one of the officers after the shooting.

The officer who is believed to have shot O'Neal thought he might have been shooting at him from the moving Jaguar, when in fact his colleagues had been firing on the car.

The videos show that officer also said that when he opened fire on O'Neal, "I didn't know if he was armed or not."

The Police Department redacted the names of the officers and other police personnel in the reports, citing a state records clause that allows law enforcement to withhold them if they believe their safety could be jeopardized.

"At this time, CPD has received credible information to suggest that the welfare of all officers involved in this incident may be in great danger," according to a letter from Dane Rohrer, FOIA representative for the department. "Personnel from CPD's Deployment Operations Section have shared intelligence with Department members regarding numerous threats to the lives of Department personnel."

IPRA, the city agency that probes shootings involving Chicago cops, also has refused to release the names, giving the same reason.

Neither the police nor IPRA have cited any specific threats that compelled them to withhold the names. But on the day the videos were released, officers were warned that several West Side gangs met to discuss hurting police. According to an alert obtained by the Tribune, police were warned that gangs had considered using automatic weapons and a sniper against them.

Identifying police in fatal shootings can be a contentious issue between police unions and city administrations. Practices for going public with officers' identities vary nationwide, with departments releasing names within one or two days in some high-profile cases and holding them back in others. In one recent police shooting that garnered national attention — the killing of Philando Castile in July in Minnesota — officials released the identity of the officer who fired about 24 hours after the incident.

2 cops in O'Neal shooting had never fired gun at citizen before, records show

Two of the Chicago police officers who were stripped of their police powers over the controversial killing of Paul O'Neal last month each have less than four years on the job and had never before fired a gun at a person while on duty, the Tribune has learned.

The officer who fired five shots — including the apparent fatal shot — after O'Neal ran into a backyard on the South Side on July 28 is Jose Diaz, who has been on the force for just less than four years, according to an examination of records from the Police Department and the Independent Police Review Authority, along with footage from the incident.

The officer who had earlier fired nine times at O'Neal, 18, as he fled in a reportedly stolen Jaguar is Michael Coughlin Jr., who joined the department two years ago, the records show.

Neither officer had fired a gun at a citizen while on duty before O'Neal's shooting, according to an analysis of city records by the Tribune.

Coughlin had not previously been the subject of any citizen complaints, records show, while Diaz has been the subject of two complaints. The nature of the complaints is not detailed in city data. One of those was determined to be unfounded, but the resolution of the other was unclear from city records.

A search of lawsuits in federal court — where civil rights complaints against officers are often filed — showed none had been filed against either officer before the O'Neal shooting.

Neither officer could be reached for comment.

The fatal shooting of the unarmed African-American teen marks an early test of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's ability to deliver on reforms he promised after the release of video of another police shooting roiled the city. That shooting — of black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by Officer Jason Van ? , who is now charged with murder — has driven a political controversy Emanuel was still trying to navigate when O'Neal was killed.



The O'Neal case indicates that much has changed about the city's response to fatal police shootings. Superintendent Eddie Johnson moved quickly after the shooting to strip the officers of their police powers, citing apparent policy violations. IPRA, meanwhile, broke with past practice by promptly releasing nine video clips from police dashboard and body cameras that showed the turmoil and tactical errors that ensued as police tried to arrest O'Neal.

The videos, which are posted on IPRA's website, show the faces and name tags of the officers involved, and their last names can also be heard, but both IPRA and the Police Department have refused requests to officially identify the officers, citing potential dangers to police. The Police Department has pointed to a warning it issued to officers telling them that gang members had met to discuss shooting police, but the department has not cited any threat specific to the officers involved in O'Neal's shooting.

While the videos show in clear detail what happened, the refusal to release the officers' full names had prevented the media and public from fully scrutinizing the service histories of the police who shot at O'Neal.

On Wednesday, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request related to broader Tribune reporting on IPRA's investigations, the agency named officers Coughlin and Diaz in a spreadsheet as being investigated in the O'Neal shooting. A third officer fired once during the incident, records show, but he was not named in the IPRA data.

Diaz, who is listed in a police report as Hispanic, is one of three Chicago officers with the same name, according to city records. The other two have been with the department since the 1990s, records show. Another officer also has the same name as Coughlin, but he has been with the department since the 1990s and does not go by Junior. Coughlin is listed as white in the police report.

An IPRA spokeswoman declined to comment.

The IPRA and Chicago police records, in combination with the videos, make clear each officer's role in O'Neal's shooting in the South Shore neighborhood.

The footage shows that Coughlin was the first officer to shoot.

In the moments before the shooting, Coughlin was a passenger in the SUV driven by his partner. The confrontation began as the partner, seeking out the stolen car, drove the wrong way down one-way Merrill Avenue and stopped in the path of the allegedly stolen Jaguar, according to the footage. Coughlin drew and raised his semi-automatic handgun while he was still in the vehicle, and both officers jumped out of the SUV as the Jaguar drew near.

The Jaguar navigated between the police SUV and a parked car, clipping both of them, according to a police report. As the Jaguar was passing, Coughlin started firing rapidly, directing a hail of bullets at the sports car and continuing to shoot as it sped into the distance. Coughlin reported firing nine rounds, and his partner fired once, records show. Coughlin's partner was momentarily in his field of fire as the rounds flew, the videos show, and both officers were firing in the direction of other officers as they shot at the fleeing Jaguar.

Chicago Police Department policy specifically bans shooting at a moving car when it is the only threat to the safety of police or others.

As Coughlin fired at the Jaguar, it was speeding toward another police SUV containing Diaz and his partner, video shows.

Dashboard camera footage from that vehicle shows the officers speeding the wrong way down Merrill as the Jaguar barrels into the frame. The officers can be heard saying "look out" and then "get down" as the Jaguar plows head-on into the SUV.

The officers chased after O'Neal as he ran from the crash. Police ran up driveways and leapt fences trying to stop O'Neal as he fled into a backyard.

No body camera caught video footage of the fatal shooting of O'Neal in a backyard, but Diaz was recorded after the incident saying he fired the shots. His body camera was not working before the shooting — for reasons that remain unclear — but it was turned on afterward. Other officers' body cameras picked up audio of the shots fired in the yard, spaced out over a span of several seconds.

Shortly after those shots rang out, officers descended on O'Neal as he lay on his stomach near a home and handcuffed him as blood radiated across his shirt. Officers cursed and shouted at O'Neal, the video shows, and one of them accused him of shooting at them.

Diaz's body camera captured him making potentially damning comments about his decision to fire.

"I didn't know if he was armed or not," Diaz told another officer on-camera.

O'Neal died of a single gunshot wound to the back, authorities said, and no weapon was recovered from him.

The body camera also recorded Diaz indicating he believed someone may have been firing on officers from the speeding Jaguar, when, in fact, the shots came from colleagues.

In records the department released, Diaz said he thought O'Neal was grabbing for his waistband before he was fatally shot in the backyard, implying the man might have been reaching for a gun.

None of the videos of the incident, though, captured Diaz saying anything about O'Neal reaching for his waistband. The reports also indicated that Diaz "perceived shots" to have come from O'Neal during the incident.

The camera attached to Coughlin recorded him saying he shot at the Jaguar because he thought it almost hit his partner as it passed their vehicle.

"F man, I'm going to be on the desk for 30 ? days now. F--- desk duty for 30 days now," he said. "Motherf--. I shot. He almost hit him."