Body Cam Shows Chicago Police Officer Shooting a Man in the Back

Maurice Granton's family says the video shows that the shooting was unjustified.

Terrence Antonio James/TNS/Newscom

Body camera from the Chicago Police-involved shooting of a 24-year-old man on the South Side has been released by Chicago's Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA).

The video shows Maurice Granton, Jr., running from the police in June. At one point, he reaches for the top of a fence in an attempt to climb it. When he does, an officer shoots him in the back and he falls down to the ground. The officer who shot Granton reportedly tells another officer to "get the weapon." A longer video is available here. (Warning: Video may be disturbing to some viewers.)

Granton was transported to the hospital, where he later died from his wounds.

According to an investigation conducted by ABC 7 Chicago, police took interest in Granton during a drug investigation. A longer video reportedly shows Granton approaching a car and conducting what is believed to be a cash transaction. At one point, police say, Granton brandished a gun on camera. The investigation notes that the video is dark and unclear at the point police say Granton showed his gun. He was shot about half an hour later.

Police in the area reportedly knew of Granton long before the shooting. He was arrested at least eight previous times for charges relating to drugs, robbery, and parole violations.

Andrew Stroth, who is representing Granton's family, condemned the officer's actions in the video. "It shows an unarmed black man running away from police, and police don't have a right to shoot and kill in that situation," he observed. "We continue to have young black men unjustifiably shot by police. When is it going to stop?"

The Chicago Police Department released a statement saying that at least one officer involved was given administrative duties for 30 days following the incident and that an investigation was under way.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

"Get the weapon."

Oh boy.

[Tony]

Maybe the cop was a terrorist. You know how they are incapacitated when confronted with the human buttocks.

[Crusty Juggler]

"Police in the area reportedly knew of Granton long before the shooting as he was arrested at least eight previous times for charges relating to drugs, robbery, and parole violations."

Good shoot.

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

Crusty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[shortviking]

Yeah, this one isn't a hill to die on.

[Calidissident]

You know that wasn't a serious comment, right?

[shortviking]

You know that mine was, right?

[Marty Feldman's Eyes]

You know that wasn't a serious comment, right?

How the fuck would anyone know anymore.

[Ryan Frank]

Its annoying that I have to search though 3 of the links before I can find out if he had a gun or not (it appears that he did). Shoot still seems pretty shady based on video but that's kind of important information.

[SIV]

The police shoot enough innocent or at least sympathetic victims. Don't try to make violent career criminal armed fleeing felons the poster children for police abuse. That's even a worse strategy for reform than making it all about racial disparities.

[Calidissident]

That's like saying don't make criminals the poster children for prosecutor abuse, or 4th/5th/8th amendment rights, etc.

[Lester224]

Yes because police should be able to shoot fleeing criminals in the back whenever they want to. Death to all fleeing felons.

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

"Complaints about police abuses should be saved for serious instances, like when a rude policeman roughly tackles an errant teenager running out of a neighbor's chicken coop." - SIV

[IceTrey]

Well drug crime is a result of police abusing our liberty. See how it works is they cause all the violence then demand more resources to fight the violence they cause. It's win-win for them. They get more money and get to shoot niggas in the back.

[retiredfire]

"Well drug crime is a result of police abusing our liberty."
The police don't make drug use/sales a crime. And you would do well to remember that it being a crime is something that the majority of citizens support.
The police are there to enforce the laws the politicians make.
That's who you should aim your condemnation at, as far as "abusing your liberty".

[Delius]

you would do well to remember that it being a crime is something that the majority of citizens support

What difference does that make? The tyrrany of the majority is what gets us shitty things like Blue Laws.

[Kyfho Myoba]

Dumb. Each department (most people incorrectly refer to them as "branches") of government is separate, equal and independent of the others. The executive cannot be forced or required to enforce laws it deems to be unConstitutional. Each police officer takes an oath of office, not to obey his commanders orders, but to preserve, protect and defend the constitution against ALL enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC. Of course we can blame the legislators that passed these execrable bills, but we can also blame the moral half-wits that enforce them as well, when they are the ones that witness up close the abominable effects that these horrifyingly unlawful decrees have on the people that they have sworn to protect and serve.

Fuck the majority, fuck the politicians, fuck the police and fuck your slaver reasoning.

[Ryan Frank]

Its annoying that I have to search though 3 of the links before I can find out if he had a gun or not (it appears that he did). Shoot still seems pretty shady based on video but that's kind of important information.

[Eddy]

Do these guys have inquest juries? Some places require it for deaths in controversial circumstances.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

"We continue to have young black men unjustifiably shot by police. When is it going to stop?"

When we finally get some black police officers on the force!

[SIV]

And elect some minority municipal public officials from the Party of Civil Liberties!

[Eddy]

Yeah, the racist-cop angle is such a dead end that, if debates were governed by logic, it would largely have fallen on its face by now.

To be clear - there are undoubtedly racist cops, but that in itself doesn't explain the statistics of police shootings, or the details of every controversial shooting.

If it were just a matter of white-on-black racism, and if whites were exempt from abuse, plenty of white people killed by trigger-happy (and choking-happy) officers would still be alive.

I think it has more to do with an esprit de corps and lack of accountability which transcends race. Or, rather, accountability seems fairly arbitrary - throwing some cop (innocent or guilty) into the criminal justice system based on racial considerations rather than because they're objectively among the worst of the bad apples.

[Deconstructed Potato]

Yes, that.

[JoeJoetheIdiotCircusBoy]

Agree with your points. I would add that the majority of the racial disparities can likely be accounted for because communities on the margins are those that feel the brute force of the state earliest and strongest. Minority communities (in the aggregate) are more likely to be marginalized. This to me makes more sense than the "cops=racist" argument. I mean compare the beating of Kelly Thomas to Eric Garner. Or compare the LaQuan MacDonald shooting to James Boyd's shooting. Or christ, look at the shooting of Ricardo Diaz Zeferino or Daniel Shaver who were being compliant in EVERY WAY imaginable and were still shot to death. To say that this simply cops killing "young Black men" because they are racist is to completely ignore the institution itself.

[JoeJoetheIdiotCircusBoy]

Same story, different day:

police took interest in Granton during a drug investigation.

The investigation notes that the video is dark and unclear at the point police say Granton showed his gun.

The Chicago Police Department released a statement saying that at least one officer involved was given administrative duties for 30 days following the incident

[lulz farmer]

The funny thing about bodycams though is that in the vast majority of cases it disproves the dindu nuffin narratives of evil cops being racist rascals, which is why there are now a slew of positively Talmudic articles arguing to do away with the bodycams and go back to hearsay.

[Cathy L]

Lol. I'm sure you have links to those articles.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Here's one.

The benefits of police body cams are a mytht

So far, there's little evidence to suggest that department-owned, officer-operated cameras will lead to any meaningful improvements. To the contrary, a tool that's viewed by some as one that can protect black lives is actually one that mainly helps those in blue.

And another.

"Unrestricted footage review places civil rights at risk and undermines the goals of transparency and accountability," said Vanita Gupta, former head of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division and current head of the Leadership Conference, in the report's introduction.

Because an officer's memory of an event may be altered by watching body camera footage, doing so will likely alter what officers write in their reports. That, in turn, can make it more difficult for investigators or courts to assess whether the officer's actions were reasonable based on what he or she perceived at the time of the incident, states the report, "The Illusion of Accuracy: How Body-Worn Camera Footage Can Distort Evidence."

[mad.casual]

Again, Reason refuses to even touch the Harith Augustus piece where the video released by police was distinctly closer to propaganda than anything resembling evidence.

The original 'charge' as officially released by the CPD was 'exhibiting characteristics of an armed person', a witness says officers stopped Harith claiming he was selling loose cigarettes. Of course, this would be plainly knowable if audio from the officers' bodycams were released at the same time as the video.

[Sonny Bono's Ghost]

After watching some of the footage is is also apperant that the asshat that pulled the trigger was firing in the direction of other officers as well. WTF is that guy doing in a uniform?

[Short Srain]

I am suppressed by the southern accents in Chicago. Probably because it is better to freeze in Chicago than hang from a tree in Mississippi.

[Short Srain]

At least Chicago has decent ribs and great Blues, it almost makes up for their pizza.

[Cy]

Genuinely curious, when was the last time someone hung from a tree in MIssissippi? I can tell you there are a lot of recent deaths in Chicago, some racist, some police related, mostly gangs killing each other.

[mad.casual]

I can tell you there are a lot of recent deaths in Chicago, some racist, some police related, mostly gangs killing each other.

Cold deaths in Chicago are, year-over-year, concentrated in poorer minority neighborhoods. Winter in Chicago is more deadly and more racist than in Mississippi and pretty much has been since before the Civil War.