Jan. 21--The partner of a Chicago police officer who shot and killed 17-year-old Cedrick Chatman as he ran from a South Side traffic stop in 2013 has been removed from a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by the teen's family.
U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman ruled Thursday that Officer Lou Toth should not be part of the lawsuit because he didn't fire his weapon and didn't see his partner, Officer Kevin Fry, fatally shoot Chatman.
"Toth could not see Fry, and Fry gave no indication that he was going to shoot," the judge said in his ruling. "Toth simply did not have time either to call for help or to stop Fry from firing. No reasonable jury could find otherwise."
Fry and the city of Chicago remain defendants in the lawsuit, which contends the officers violated Chatman's civil rights by using excessive force.
According to police records released last week, the incident unfolded shortly after 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, 2013, when Chatman and two friends, Akeem Clarke and Martel Odom, beat and robbed a man inside his Dodge Charger while negotiating a deal to buy cellphone service from him.
After the beating, Chatman took off alone in the victim's car, according to the records.
Fry and Toth were on routine patrol when they said they spotted the Charger rolling through a stop sign at 75th Street and Essex Avenue. They ran the car's Wisconsin license plates, but the car came back clean so they didn't stop it at the time, the records state.
When the call came over the radio minutes later about the carjacking, they doubled back and caught up with Chatman at 75th and Jeffery Boulevard, according to the records. Surveillance videos show Chatman bailing out of the car as Toth and Fry get out of their unmarked car. Toth follows Chatman, and Fry is behind them.
Toth told detectives he was running to keep up with Chatman and didn't notice an object in his hands, according to the reports released on Friday. As they neared the corner, Toth said, he saw Chatman "make a move to his right" just before the shots rang out, according to the case incident report.
"I give up. I'm shot," Chatman said to Toth, according to Toth's statement to investigators at the scene.
Fry, meanwhile, said in a court deposition that Chatman had turned toward his partner.
Chatman's family argue in the lawsuit that it was unreasonable for Toth to draw his weapon when approaching the Dodge Charger. But the judge disagreed, stating there was nothing "objectively unreasonable" for Toth to draw his weapon because he was told it had been taken in a carjacking.
"Given the circumstances, they had every reason to believe the occupant was dangerous," Gettleman ruled.
The judge also disagreed that Toth was guilty of using excessive force because he failed to stop Fry from using excessive force. Gettleman said the surveillance videos "refute any suggestion that Toth had an opportunity to prevent Fry from discharging his weapon."
A lawyer for Chatman's family said he was not disappointed by Gettleman's ruling and believed it refocuses attention on Fry.
Brian Coffman claimed Fry opened fire even though he was unsure Chatman had a gun. "Why would you shoot someone running away if you didn't even determine what was going on?"
