Chicago Police Kill 13-year-old Boy
“He still played with Hot Wheels,” says his mother
| revcom.us
Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old seventh grader in Chicago, died when a cop shot him in the chest in the early morning hours of Monday, March 29. After killing him, the police left his body in an alley behind a high school for hours. Initial news reports led people to believe that “the suspect” was an adult. On Wednesday, when his photo was posted, it was clear the police had killed a child. His mother, Elizabeth Toledo, had reported him missing. Two days after her son was murdered in cold blood, she learned from the Chicago police that one of their pigs had gunned him down.
Adam lived with his mother and four siblings in Little Village, a largely Mexican neighborhood in the West Side of Chicago. “I just want to know what really happened to my baby... He was a little kid,” Elizabeth Toledo said through her tears. She said that Adam “still played with Hot Wheels” and that “He was always happy. He loved animals. He was loving to all his siblings... He used to like bike riding. He used to listen to music.” Elizabeth told reporters that Adam had actually wanted to be a cop when he grew up—“And the next thing you know, a cop took his life.”
People in the neighborhood and Adam's friends and family have organized rallies and vigils and called on the city to release the videos of his killing, which they are now reportedly promising to do.
The police are already doing what they usually do to try to justify their violent actions, talking about how there was an “armed confrontation” and that a gun was “found” near the location where Adam Toledo was killed. Whatever happened that early Monday morning, the police killing of Adam Toledo was completely unnecessary and totally intolerable. His mother said in anguish, “They had a lot of options, but not kill him.” What kind of a monstrous, criminal system has armed enforcers of the law that shoots down seventh-grade kids?!
