This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

After threatening to sue the city’s police department, the Chicago Tribune has obtained official data tracking every time an officer has opened fire in the city over the past six years. The vast majority of those shot, the newspaper found, were black men or boys.

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According to the data, there were 435 police shootings in Chicago from 2010 through 2015, in which officers killed 92 people and wounded 170. In all, officers fired 2,623 bullets.

“While a few of those incidents captured widespread attention,” the paper wrote, “they occurred with such brutal regularity – and with scant information provided by police – that most have escaped public scrutiny.”

The newspaper’s findings showed that about four out of every five people shot were African American males. It also found that about half of the officers involved were African American or Hispanic and most had years of experience. Of 520 officers who fired their weapons, the paper found, more than 60 did so in more than one incident.

Most of the police shootings took place in south and west side neighborhoods beset by gang violence and poverty. At least one of every five shootings involved plainclothes tactical officers charged with taking on gangs, the newspaper found.

Dean Angelo Sr, president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, told the Tribune: “When you look at the map, 80% of narcotics arrests, gun arrests and gang arrests happen in these poor areas. Where you’ve got dope, you’ve got guns. It’s not about ethnicity – it’s about criminal involvement.”

He also said: “As a police officer, you don’t wait for the shot to come in your direction. You might not get a chance to return fire.”

A community activist, Charles Jenkins, told the Tribune he believes the race of those shot influences the investigations into the shootings.

“It’s easier to believe, because they’re black, that an officer was in fear of their life and [the officer gets] off,” he said.

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Police shootings in Chicago have caused controversy and protest, leading to pressure on the Democratic mayor, former Obama administration chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

Investigations have led to reform, including major changes to the department and various oversight bodies, the creation of an online database of police misconduct, and the firing of police superintendent Garry McCarthy.

Prominent cases have included the deaths of Laquan McDonald, a black teen who was shot 16 times by an officer in 2014, and Paul O’Neal, an 18-year-old who was unarmed when an officer shot him in the back in July.

Video of the Laquan McDonald shooting, released upon a judge’s order in November, contradicted officers’ accounts that the teen lunged at them threateningly with a knife. The officer who fired those shots has been charged with first-degree murder.

The Tribune’s review of the police data also found that the number of Chicago police shootings has declined since 2010, from more than 100 in 2011 to 44 last year.