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he Civilian Office of Police Accountability has released raw video footage of the fatal police shooting of Harith Augustus on July 14 in the city's South Shore neighborhood. Augustus, 37, was approached in the 2000-block of 71st Street by police who suspected he was carrying a firearm. The Chicago Police Department released a portion of one officer's body camera video of the incident, which ended with an officer shooting and killing Augustus. Augustus' stepfather was the only member of his family present, along with the attorney, at that viewing. The family's attorney spoke afterward. "It showed the police officers were there, they saw a young man coming and they start chasing for him for no obvious reason that we're aware of, and we'll keep looking into that as the lawyers in the case," said Standish Willis, attorney.
Willis said they only saw surveillance video from near the scene. It was not immediately clear why they were not shown body cam video. In the days following the shooting, Chicago police released one piece of body cam footage that showed the deadly encounter. But the video had no audio and raised a number of questions. "I think as long as Rahm Emanuel is the mayor of this city we'll never have true transparency," said community organizer Will Calloway. "And if the city can selectively release edited video when it wants to within two days, it ought to be doing that for all videos in all instances," said Matt Topic, Loevy & Loevy. Days of protests followed the shooting. There were clashes between police and protesters and calls for COPA to release all available video