13-year-old boy killed by police in Little Village after ‘armed confrontation,’ officials sayon April 1, 2021 at 6:45 pm

Police shot and killed a 13-year-old boy after an “armed confrontation” in Little Village early Monday, officials said.

Adam Toledo, 13, who lived in the neighborhood, was shot in his chest and later died in the incident, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

In a statement, police said officers responded to a ShotSpotter alert about 2:35 a.m. and saw two males standing in an alley in the Southwest Side neighborhood.

One armed person ran from the scene and was shot by a police officer during an “armed confrontation” in the 2300 block of South Sawyer Avenue, police said. Farragut Career Academy High School is located at the end of the block.

That person, later identified as Toledo, died at the scene, police said. An autopsy found he died of a gunshot wound to his chest.

Police shared a photo of a gun allegedly recovered at the scene.

Rafael Hurtado Jr., 30, who said he has lived a few houses down from Toledo’s home for years, called the shooting tragic and urged CPD to release any footage related to the shooting.

“It’s hard to take CPDs word for it” that he was armed, he said. “Especially with everything that’s been going on with the police shootings in other places.”

He said that “it’s tragic for everyone involved, for the family, for the kid because he was so young and for the officer who pulled the trigger.”

The other person who ran from police, 21-year-old Ruben Roman Jr. of Edgewater, was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor count of resisting arrest, police said. In 2019, Roman pleaded guilty to illegal gun possession stemming from an arrest in Evanston and was sentenced to probation, court records show.

The officer in Monday’s incident was placed on desk duty for 30 days while the Civilian Office of Police Accountability investigates the shooting, police said.

It wasn’t immediately clear if COPA would share video and evidence of the shooting. COPA is required to release body camera video of police shootings within 60 days of the incident, but department policy prohibits them from sharing video if the victim is under 18 years old.

COPA has not released details about the incident. A spokesman for COPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday morning.

Two other people have been shot by Chicago police officers this week. Early Wednesday, an officer fatally shot an armed man in Portage Park after officers chased the man on foot. An officer fired shots after the man allegedly pulled out a gun in the 5200 block of West Eddy Street, police said.

Less than an hour later, an off-duty Chicago police officer shot someone breaking into their home in Albany Park on the Northwest Side. The officer shot the man in his face about 12:55 a.m. as the man broke into the officer’s home in the 3100 block of Belle Plaine Avenue, police said. The man was rushed in serious condition to Illinois Masonic Medical Center.

Contributing: Cindy Hernandez, Frank Main

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