(CNN)Authorities released body-worn camera footage that shows an officer making a split-second decision to fire a single shot that killed 13-year-old Adam Toledo after the boy is seen holding a handgun at the end of a foot chase, according to police.
Police say what was in Toledo's hand is a gun that was later recovered from behind the fence where the chase ended.
Prosecutors, in charging a 21-year-old man who was with Toledo at the beginning of the police encounter in the early morning hours of March 29, said the gun recovered a few feet from the boy's body matched shell casings located where police were summoned moments earlier, and that Toledo's hand and gloves dropped by the older man had tested positive for gunshot residue.
Body-worn camera videos were released by Chicago's Civilian Office of Police Accountability, the police oversight agency that reviews incidents in which an officer fires a department issued handgun.
Documents released by COPA identify the officer who fired his weapon as Eric Stillman, who is 34 years old. The Chicago Police Department also released a video compilation of surveillance footage from a nearby school and church.
The video, according to police, shows a gun in Toledo's right hand as he nears an open area of fence next to an empty lot. Toledo turns to his left, toward the officer, and what police say is the gun disappears behind his right side. Toledo begins to raise his hands as he's facing the officer when the officer fires his weapon.
From the time police said the gun was first visible on body-worn camera footage in Toledo's hand, to the time the officer fired his weapon, was eight tenths of a second. In that period of time, his right arm disappears behind the fence before he begins to raise both hands.
Chicago's mayor, Lori Lightfoot, released a joint statement with Toledo's family and held a press conference Thursday afternoon calling the video "difficult to watch." The Chicago Police Department would not answer questions about the shooting but released a slowed-down video that highlights a portion of the interaction between the officer and Toledo.
"At the time Adam was shot, he did not have a gun. OK?" his family's attorney, Adeena Weiss-Ortiz, told reporters Thursday afternoon. "In that slo-mo version (of one of the videos), whatever he had in his, in his hand, whether it was a gun or something else, there was something in his hand, he approaches the fence, he lets it go, he turns around, and he's shot."
"It could be a gun. I'm not going to deny that, that it could be a gun, but I can't tell you with 100% certainty, until I have that video forensically analyzed and enhanced," the attorney continued. "But it is not relevant, because he tossed the gun. If he had a gun, he tossed it."
Timothy Grace, a union lawyer representing Stillman, said the case was tragic but his client was placed in a situation where he was "left with no other option."
"The juvenile had a handgun in his right hand, given verbal direction, told to drop and stop and to adhere to the police officer's valid, lawful orders and the juvenile begins to turn," he said. "At that point (the officer) has no cover, no concealment, he's left with no other option."
"He feels horrible about the outcome. He feels horrible he had to use deadly force. No police officer wants to use deadly force in the line of duty. He was well within his justification of using deadly force, he just feels horrible."
The entire incident lasts about ten minutes, from the dispatch of gunfire that police were alerted to by the city's gunfire detection technology about 2:36 a.m., to the point where Toledo is pronounced dead at the scene at 2:46 a.m.
