Chicago cop listed as a 'victim' in police report after he fatally shot an unarmed 13-year-old

The Chicago police officer who shot and killed 13-year-old Adam Toledo was listed as a victim in an incident report.

Last week, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability released body camera footage and reports on the fatal shooting.

Despite the footage appearing to show that the teenager was unarmed when Officer Eric Stillman shot him, the report lists the 34-year-old cop as a victim in an aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer, per Insider.

In the tactical response report released by the police watchdog agency, it was also stated that Toledo had been armed with a semi-automatic pistol, which was "displayed, not used" during the deadly encounter.

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Tom Nolan, an expert on law enforcement who once worked with the Boston Police Department, told Insider that listing the cop as the victim in the report is "a long-used and hackneyed police trope" to recast the "focus of culpability and blame onto the actual victim of the police deadly force incident, i.e. the person who the police killed."

He added: "Thus the victim, in this case, the unarmed dead child who is shot and killed by police becomes the 'perpetrator' and the police officer shooter, the killer, assumes the posture and pose of 'victim'.

"It's an old cop trick meant to muddy the murky waters, and is often used in the aftermath of what we cops call a 'bad shoot.'"

Alfred Titus, who worked at the New York Police Department for 23 years as a homicide detective, told Insider that listing the cop as the victim is "not common" unless "there were actually shots fired."

Credit: SOPA Images Limited / Alamy Stock Photo

He said: "It is done in a time where law enforcement wants to try to be cleared of a controversial issue, or they want to try to gain more of the sympathy or, you know, more of a view that they are the victim themselves and not the state or not that the guy just had the gun in his hand.

"It just brings more emotion into the case on the side of the law enforcement agency and the police officer. So that is possibly why it was done this time. Absolutely possible."

Despite Stillman's listing as a victim in the report, the body camera footage appears to show Toledo dropping a handgun in compliance with the officer's demands. He then turns to face him and raises his hands unarmed, right before he is fatally shot in the chest.

Featured image credit: Sipa US / Alamy Stock Photo