Body camera video shows Chicago area police shooting unarmed teen
CHICAGO (CBS) -- South suburban Sauk Village police body camera videos, from March 2022, show officers stopping two teens and questioning them about a broken window.
A woman told officers she believed the 14-year-old male was responsible for breaking it a day earlier. Police video and cellphone video, recorded by a witness, show this stop quickly escalating -- with one officer using a Taser on the teen.
"They use the Taser on what's known as a pain setting," said Gabe Hardy, one of the teen's attorneys.
According to police records, the Taser was used in a drive-stun mode. The device put directly against the teen's body delivering a painful shock. That's different from the Taser prongs being deployed, which immobilizes a person.
"The only purpose of using the pain setting is to cause maximum pain to the individual," said Hardy.
The Taser had been used soon after police started questioning the teen and his friend. Officer Seth Brown can be heard on his camera talking about why he is stopping them.
"Somebody called to complain about you guys," said Brown. "You guys were involved in something, and damaging somebody's windows."
The female teen says, "That ain't got nothing to do with me."
Brown asks the teens for IDs and, then tells the 14-year-old male to show his hands.
"Do me a favor -- keep, keep your hands out of your pockets bro," Brown is heard saying. "Just keep your hands out of your pockets."
At the same time, Sgt. Scott Langan was talking to the woman who suspected the teen was responsible for her broken window. She could be heard on the sergeant's camera saying, "That's the boy that did it."
She said she had a picture of him, and the teen knows her nephew. Langan then walks over to the teens being questioned. They were saying they didn't do anything wrong.
Then the situation quickly escalates as Sgt. Langan grabs the teen's arm and puts a handcuff on one wrist.
"Why are you touching me?" the boy was heard saying repeatedly.
Langan ordered him to put his hands behind his back because he was under arrest. The teen asked about what the charges were.
"CDP," said Langan.
The teen's lawyers say the eighth-grader definitely didn't know what CDP meant. It's an acronym for Criminal Damage to Property.
As Langan and Brown try to finish handcuffing the teen, they give conflicting messages. One officer says he will be charged and let go, while the other one tells him a Taser will be used on him.
"Right now, it's just her word against your word," said Langan. "You are going to get charged and let go."
At the same time, Brown was saying, "Put your hands behind your back now, or I'm going to Tase you."
Then Brown stays true to his word and uses his Taser on the eighth-grader, who starts screaming in pain and tries to get away.
The boy separates from the officer's grip, when a piece of his clothing tears off, and then he starts running down the street. Langan then pulls his duty weapon from the holster on his right hip, aims at the unarmed fleeing teen, and fires.
The bullet rips through the teen's hip.
Attorney Al Hofeld, Jr. also represents the teen, whom we are not naming, in a lawsuit against the Sauk Village Police Department.
"It was excessive, completely unnecessary," said Hofeld, Jr., about the shooting. "There was no justification whatsoever for this officer immediately drawing his firearm and shooting this 14-year-old kid."
The teen, now bleeding, continues to run from the officers. The body camera video shows Langan catching up to the teen and, this time, he pulls out his Taser and deploys it as the teen jumps a fence.
"He was afraid they were coming after him," said Hofeld, Jr. "He was afraid they were going to shoot him again."
Two weeks after this incident, Langan was questioned by the Illinois State Police with Cook County prosecutors. A report obtained from this meeting says Langan claimed the shooting was an accident. He said he thought he grabbed his Taser and didn't realize he grabbed his gun.
It also quotes Langan as saying: "I'm completely sorry. I feel like I let everyone down. I have nothing else to say."
"He certainly should have known he had a handgun in his hand," said Hardy. "He pulled the weapon from the holster that holds his handgun."
"When he extends it out in front of him, it's within his range of vision," said Hofeld, Jr. "It's in fact it's within his direct line of sight. So he sees the weapon before he pulls the trigger."
The Glock handgun in this case is nearly five times the weight of the Taser.
"Beyond reckless," said Hardy about the shooting. "That is an absolute reckless disregard for the safety of the individual that they are firing at, and for the public in general."
Where he had kept his gun and his Taser mattered. Langan carried his Taser in his vest on the front of his body.
Brown carried his Taser in a separate holster on the opposite side of his holstered gun.
Sauk Village Police Department policy required the two weapons be holstered on opposite sides of the officer's body. But Langan just kept his Taser attached in the front pouch of his vest.
The policy took effect after a deadly weapon mix-up in Minnesota. An officer grabbed her gun instead of her Taser and killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in April of 2021. The Sauk Village Police Department Taser policy ordering officers to move their Tasers to the side opposite their holstered gun went into effect a few months after Wright's killing.
There seem to be other Taser-related issues in the Sauk Village Police Department too. Langan said he received training only two or three times in the 10 years he carried one. Sauk Village Police Department policy says at a minimum officers should be trained every year.
While the teen was hiding from police, he called his guardian for help. When the guardian got to the scene he had questions for police.
"He says you shot him, you shot him for no reason," said the teen's guardian. "The girl said she got it on tape."
He was given a vague response and not told what happened.
The emergency medical technician treating the teen also wanted to know what happened.
"They trying to say that one of y'all shot him or something," said the EMT.
The response he got from Officer Brown was, "Wasn't me."
After the teen's handcuffs were removed, he was taken to the hospital to treat his gunshot wound. The broken window was never brought up again.
"They never arrest him. They never charge him. They never cite him. He never has to go to court. That was the end of, it was the end of the matter," said Hofeld, Jr. "It's like it never happened. And it looks and feels like contrition, because they know - they shot him unjustifiably."
One-and-a-half years after the teen was shot, no discipline has been given. Sauk Village Police Chief Malcolm White says the disciplinary process has not begun. He said they were waiting to get the Illinois State Police and Cook County State's Attorney's office findings. The State's Attorney's office determined in early September that no criminal charges would be filed against the sergeant for the shooting.
No further comment was provided by the police chief.
