Updated: April 29, 2024
Chicago’s Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Dexter Reed’s death a homicide, WLS-TV reports.
Officials performed an autopsy one day after officers gunned down Reed during a March 21 traffic stop for an alleged seatbelt violation.
A violent Chicago police video showed four plainclothes officers firing 96 shots in 41 seconds at 26-year-old Black motorist Dexter Reed Jr. The report, released on April 25, said 13 bullets struck Reed.
Reed’s family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on April 24 against Chicago and the five officers involved in the shooting, according to USA Today. The 81-page lawsuit alleges 17 violations, including excessive force.
“Officers who initially approached Dexter’s vehicle were outrageously escalatory,” the document states, adding that the officers used “wildly disproportionate force against Dexter — repeatedly shooting at him even when he clearly presented no threat.”
A recommendation from the city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability, or COPA, urged Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling to relieve the officers of their police powers during an investigation.
COPA’s initial probe suggests that Reed fired first, wounding an officer in the forearm with a single shot during the March 21 traffic stop. However, COPA questions why the cops, who have a history of alleged excess force, stopped Reed in the first place.
Snelling told reporters at a news conference on Friday (April 12) that he doesn’t plan to strip the officers of their police powers, for now, while they remain on administrative duties, CBS News reported. He urged Chicagoans to suspend judgment until the investigation is completed.
CPD is under a federal court-approved consent decree that requires officials to reform training, policies and practices. The department has been under federal oversight since 2019, after the police fatal shooting of Black teenager Laquan McDonald.
According to COPA, the officers pulled over Reed for allegedly not wearing a seatbelt. They surrounded his SUV and gave him verbal commands. When Reed failed to comply, the officers pointed their guns at him.
Video footage appears to show Reed firing first, the report states. The officers responded with a barrage of bullets and continued firing when Reed fell to the ground.
Investigators recovered a gun on the front passenger seat of Reed’s vehicle.
In a letter to Snelling, COPA’s chief administrator, Andrea Kersten, questioned the justification for the traffic stop, according to The New York Times. It turns out that Reed had dark tints on the windows, making it difficult to determine that he wasn’t buckled up.
She also questions why three of the four officers reloaded their weapons, and why one of them fired three shots at Reed when he collapsed to the ground.
The five officers have been investigated a combined 41 times since 2019, including a traffic stop of a different driver for an alleged seatbelt violation a few weeks before the Reed shooting.
A lawyer representing Reed’s family, Andrew M. Stroth, wants to see the officers criminally indicted and CPD disband the plainclothes unit because it has a track record of using excessive force in communities of color.
Chicago has promised to reform its police department after a scathing 2017 federal investigation found an extensive pattern of excessive force and racial bias.