City to release O'Neal video just 8 days after shooting

Acting with uncharacteristic swiftness, Chicago officials plan to release potentially inflammatory video Friday morning showing events leading up to the fatal shooting of a black 18-year-old last week.
The city says it will post video at 11 a.m. that was taken moments before officers shot Paul O'Neal on July 28 on the South Side after he ran from a reportedly stolen sports car. The footage is to be posted on the website of the Independent Police Review Authority, the city department that investigates shootings by police.
It's not clear what the video will show, but police Superintendent Eddie Johnson took quick action after the shooting, stripping three officers of their police powers and saying it appeared they had violated departmental policies.
O'Neal's family is suing the department, and IPRA officials said family members would be allowed to see the footage before its release. The family had not yet seen the footage Thursday afternoon, an IPRA official said.
Chicago police officers tried to stop O'Neal about 7:30 p.m. July 28 in the South Shore neighborhood as he drove a Jaguar convertible reported stolen in Bolingbrook, police said. Surveillance cameras tied O'Neal and three others to a spree of car thefts, officials in the suburb said.
O'Neal struck two Chicago police vehicles in the sports car, and two officers fired at him while he was in the car, authorities said. O'Neal fled from the car, police said, and a third officer chased him behind a home. After O'Neal refused to stop, the officer shot him.
O'Neal, who was unarmed, died of a gunshot wound to the back, authorities said.
The shooting itself was not captured on video, department officials said, even though the officer who chased and shot O'Neal was wearing a body camera. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has pointed to body cameras as a tool to build trust in the police; department officials have not said why the camera did not record the shooting.
The city's quick moves after O'Neal's shooting show how much has changed in the eight months since the release of video of a white police officer shooting black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times. The officer who shot McDonald, Jason Van Dyke, is charged with murder.
The McDonald video — and long-simmering dissatisfaction with police use of force among many African-Americans — led to sustained protests, and the U.S. Justice Department launched an investigation to determine whether police had systematically violated residents' rights. Federally enforced changes could come from that ongoing investigation, and Emanuel has announced or enacted a raft of reforms to policing and officer oversight.
Johnson broke with tradition by saying police appeared to have violated departmental policy in the O'Neal case. The superintendent, who was appointed by Emanuel amid the political crisis sparked by the McDonald video, issued an unusual departmentwide memo saying that the information he had on the shooting "left (him) with more questions than answers."
The case also represents an about-face for city officials who have previously fought to prevent the release of videos of police shootings for as long as possible. In February, Emanuel announced the city would start releasing videos of shootings and other major uses of force within two to three months. Friday's anticipated release would come just eight days after the shooting.
The three officers are stripped of police authority pending an internal investigation and an inquiry by IPRA, which is also in transition. As detailed in a recent Tribune investigation, IPRA has long conducted superficial investigations and recommended light punishments.
Emanuel has announced plans to abolish the agency and replace it with a more effective department, though neither he nor his allies have announced any details. Meanwhile, IPRA's leader, former federal prosecutor Sharon Fairley, has sought to reform the department even as it faces its demise.
Under Fairley, who was appointed in the wake of the McDonald video's release, IPRA has ruled more police shootings unjustified in the past two months than it had in the prior nine years.
Two of the shootings IPRA recently ruled unjustified involved officers shooting at vehicles, as they appear to have done in O'Neal's case. In both of the shootings ruled unjustified, IPRA determined the officers faced no serious danger when they fired.
The department revised its deadly force rules in February 2015 to ban firing into a vehicle when the automobile is the only force used against an officer or bystander.