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An off-duty Chicago cop shouted “I’ll kill you” before fatally shooting a man who grabbed for her gun during a struggle last month in Washington Heights on the South Side, video released Thursday shows.
“Didn’t I just say I’d kill you,” the officer says after the third and final shot is fired. “Didn’t I just say I’d kill you?”
The private surveillance footage, released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, initially shows Leevon Smith arguing with a group of people in the 1300 block of West 90th Street just before 1 p.m. on Jan. 18.
The off-duty officer eventually leaves an apartment building, tries to diffuse the conflict and urges those involved to “calm down.” The other people take off, but Smith sticks around and talks to the officer for just over a minute.
As she turns to head back into the apartment building, the video appears to show Smith reach for the officer’s handgun, setting off a struggle.
“I’ll kill you,” the officer yells before firing two shots.
“You got me. You got me,” Smith says.
“I told your dumb— I’d kill you,” the officer says as she fires a third shot.
“Baby, I’m sorry,” Smith responds. “I’m sorry. … I don’t want to die.”
The officer then yells for someone to call the police while continuing to scream at Smith. At no point is the officer seen offering aid to the wounded man.
“I told your dumb— I’d shoot you,” the officer yells. “You tried to steal my f—ing gun. I don’t give no f— about him. He just tried to rob me.”
Before the ambulance arrives, the officer is seen walking into the building, then coming back out while on the phone. When an emergency crew pulls up, one of them asks her, “Where’d you hit him?”
“I don’t know,” the officer replies.
An arrest report shows the cop told responding officers that the shooting happened after she witnessed “a verbal argument.” She said Smith grabbed her from behind and reached for her gun “in an attempt to disarm her.”
She and Smith eventually fell to the ground while struggling for the gun, the report states. The officer then opened fire, striking Smith in his abdomen and left hand. Smith was taken into custody and brought to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead on Jan. 20.
A tactical response report states that Smith posed an “imminent threat of battery” without a weapon and physically attacked the officer. It also claims she was ambushed with “no warning” and fired a total of three shots.
The officer was treated for a laceration above her right eye at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, according to the arrest report.
Records show she joined the police force last June. The Sun-Times isn’t naming her because she hasn’t formally been accused of wrongdoing.