Another version of this story does not include graphic video of the incident. To read this story without seeing the video, click here.
HUMBOLDT PARK — The city’s police watchdog released video Tuesday morning that shows police fatally shooting Dexter Reed during a traffic stop in March.
Police shot and killed Reed, 26, on March 21 after a traffic stop in the 3800 block of West Ferdinand Street. On Tuesday, officials said the deadly encounter began because police stopped Reed for not wearing a seat belt.
Reed shot at officers first, hitting one in his forearm — then four officers shot about 96 times in 41 seconds, according the Civilian Office of Police Accountability. Officers are seen firing at Reed as he laid on the ground.
The watchdog did not say how many shots Reed allegedly fired before officers fired back.
Four officers who were involved in the shooting are on 30-day administrative leave, which is standard after use of force incidents , and the watchdog has recommended four officers be relieved of police powers while the investigation continues.
Reed’s family members and their attorneys said they want the officers involved fired and charged to the highest degree. They also do not wish there to be violence in Chicago because of the news.
“We want answers,” Porscha Banks, Reed’s older sister, said at a news conference after the video was released. “They shot at him 96 times and reloaded. This has to stop. I can’t explain the pain me and my family are going through.”
WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC VIDEO:
The shooting happened 6:02 p.m. March 21 in Humboldt Park, after police pulled over Reed’s car for a traffic stop, police said.
Videos of the shooting show plainclothes officers pulling over Reed. Several get out of a car and order Reed to roll down his windows. He rolls his tinted driver’s-side window down.
“What are you doing?” one officer says.
“I’m not doing nothing,” Reed responds before partially rolling the window up.
The officer orders Reed not to roll the window up and pulls on the driver’s door handle, which is locked.
“Do not roll the window up! Unlock the doors now!” an officer orders. At least two officers take out guns and point them at Reed while giving him orders.
“Open the door now! Open the door now!” an officer orders Reed while the officers back away, their guns pointed at Reed.
A neighbor’s surveillance footage of the incident shows an officer walk up to the passenger side of the SUV and stand there for several moments before shots are heard and the officer turns back and runs away, taking cover. Smoke can be seen around the car, which moves forward. That officer later radioed in that he’d been shot, and his wound can be seen in several videos.
Numerous shots are then heard as officers fire and run around the car.
WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC VIDEO:
Reed drives the car forward several times, hitting another car. He gets out of the driver’s side of the car and goes to the back; he is shot and falls to the ground. Officers continue to shoot at him as he lies on the ground. They stop and Reed lies, unmoving and bleeding. Officers point their guns at him and order him not to move as he lies still. One officer says Reed is still breathing as officers look for a gun.
Officers put Reed’s hands behind his back and handcuff him. Blood is seen around him on the street. The officers later turn Reed over and perform chest compressions on him.
Meanwhile, other officers apply a tourniquet to the left arm of the wounded officer while he’s on the ground and check him for other wounds. They also check on another officer who thought he was wounded but was unhurt.
“Nobody say anything, do you hear me?” an officer tells the others.
Reed was shot multiple times and was pronounced dead at a local hospital, agency officials said. The officer who was shot in his forearm was brought to an area hospital in good condition. A gun was found in Reed’s front passenger seat, according to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC VIDEO:
Family Speaks Out
Reed’s family pushed for release of video of the shooting, saying it was going to cast doubt on authorities’ narrative.
“Imagine a 26-year-old not being told what he did wrong and having five guns in his face,” Steven Hart, an attorney representing the family, said at a news conference Tuesday. “Do you believe he was frightened?
“They fire 96 times in 41 seconds. … Finally, they fire away after reloading their clips, three times on the young man just lying on the ground, having been shot multiple times.”
Andrew Stroth, another attorney for the family, said it’s unclear if Reed shot at the officers first, but he anticipates that to be revealed once the Civilian Office of Police Accountability completes its investigation. He acknowledged there was a gun found in Reed’s car, but he said video shows Reed got out of the vehicle unarmed — only to be shot by officers.
Stroth and the family said pulling over Reed for not wearing his seat belt was “completely unjustified.”
“We’re asking the Johnson administration to commit to the consent decree,” Stroth said of the federal mandate for change within the police department. “And there has been a total lack of compliance in the mayor and police [Supt.] Snelling to disband these tactical units that have been terrorizing communities on the West and South sides.”
Nicole Banks, Reed’s mother, collapsed at the news conference and had to leave. Reed would take care of her, making her breakfast and encouraging her to exercise; he bought her a Peloton bike so she could use it, she said.
“He was a good kid,” Nicole Banks said, crying. “Why they did him like that, I just don’t understand. Why are they pulling over these kids for no reason? All these kids, they don’t do illegal things all the time; they are just outside trying to find their way. He had just bought his new car three days before that and he was just riding around in his car.”
Porscha Banks, Reed’s older sister, said she hopes her brother gets justice, “not just for family but for everyone else who has to go through this.”
“It’s not fair to us or others,” she said. “The officers got to go home to their families, and he could have come back home to us, too.”
The family also sent a letter to Mayor Brandon Johnson and police Supt. Larry Snelling asking for help in releasing videos and any other evidence to understand what happened.
Stroth and Hart also demanded city officials release the involved officers’ names and preserve evidence from the shooting.
Reed was arrested twice last year, public records show: In April 2023, he was charged with retail theft, which was dropped, according to the Sun-Times. And in mid-July, he was charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon without a concealed carry card or Firearm Owner’s ID when officers said they found him with a loaded gun at the Windy City Smokeout, according to the Sun-Times. He was facing several gun-related charges that were pending when he was killed.
COPA Chief Details Evidence
Andrea Kersten, chief administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, said at a separate news conference that preliminary information and evidence confirms Reed shot first, hitting an officer, and four officers then shot about 96 times at Reed, including after he’d gotten out of the car and was on the ground.
Johnson on Tuesday pledged transparency and accountability from his administration during the investigation into the shooting. Joined at a press conference by Kersten and Kim Foxx, Cook County state’s attorney, he urged the city to remain peaceful and “not lead our city down a path of division, but instead towards healing and transformation.”
Shooting a police officer “can never be condoned,” Johnson said. But he said officers must also be held to the “highest of standards as agents of the law.”
Johnson said he visited the wounded officer in the hospital and spoke with Reed’s family. A former public school teacher, the mayor said the wounded officer and Reed, who are both Black, could have been students of his.
“I know this footage is extremely painful and traumatic for many of our city’s residents,” he said. “As mayor and as a father raising a family, including two Black boys on the West Side of Chicago, I am personally devastated to see yet another Black man lose his life during an interaction with police.”
In a second press conference, Kersten said the Civilian Office of Police Accountability determined Reed shot first after reviewing video, audio and “initial” ballistic evidence collected from the scene. That evidence will be tested by Illinois State Police for “further confirmation,” Kersten said.
“We aren’t able to conclusively determine how many times Dexter Reed Jr. may have fired inside his vehicle at this time,” Kersten said.
The determination of 96 shots fired by the four police officers “on all sides of the car” was made by reviewing body cam footage and backtracking from department rules requiring officers to keep fully loaded weapons, Kersten said. She could not say how many times officers fired at Reed once he was on the ground.
When asked if the tactical unit responding to the scene was designed to do traffic stops, Kersten referred the question to police. Police did not directly answer the question.
“We will be looking at what the officers assigned to that unit were engaged in for this incident and on this day,” Kersten said. “The only information we have at this time is that entire purpose behind the traffic stop was for Mr. Reed not wearing a seat belt. We have no information that any other information about Mr. Reed was known to officers.”
Anthony Driver, president of Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, said he watched the video and was left with “more questions than answers.” He credited the Civilian Office of Police Accountability for releasing the videos quickly.
“There can’t be [justice]. It looks like Officer St. Louis not being shot, and it looks like Dexter Reed being alive,” Driver said.
The police watchdog has 18 months to conclude its administrative investigation into the police officers, Kersten said.
“We are going to move with all due haste in hopes to be able to deliver our final recommendations in a much sooner timeline,” Kersten said.
A Former Standout Athlete
Reed’s family want him remembered as a “brave, outspoken, sweet and genuine young man,” Porscha Banks said.
Reed was known to his family and friends as a gifted young man who was a standout athlete. He had aspirations to start his own clothing company and be a sports broadcaster, Porscha Banks said.
Reed, of Garfield Park, loved to play basketball and played at Westinghouse College Prep High School, leading the team to a regional championship in 2016, his family said.
“Dexter was one of the kids you don’t just coach, you actually really love him because he was an incredible hard worker,” Bill Curry, who coached Reed on the Westinghouse basketball team 2013-2017, told the Sun-Times last month.
After high school, Reed played basketball at Morton College and studied broadcasting, Porscha Banks said.
“He was a very sophisticated, smart, ambitious guy who liked to play basketball, go to the gym, keep up with his health and spend time with his family,” Porscha Banks said. “He loved being around happy people.”
At the time of his death, Reed was not working but was gearing up to launch his clothing brand, Fanner, Porscha Banks said. Last year, he dropped his first items from the clothing line, offering fitted T-shirts and hooded jackets.
On the day Reed died, Porscha Banks saw him at his niece’s school and talked to him on the phone three minutes before the shooting, she said.
His last words to her were, “‘Take mom to the gym.’ … He wanted me to get mom out of the house,” she said.
Porscha Banks did not know where Reed was going that day, saying he liked to drive around for fun.
Porscha Banks started a GoFundMe to raise money for Reed’s funeral expenses and to pay for a lawyer to help the family get justice, she said.
A recently released analysis from advocacy groups Impact for Equity and Free2Move Coalition found about 22 percent of all traffic stops made last year were concentrated on the West Side in the Ogden (10th) and Harrison (11th) police districts — where Reed was pulled over and killed — which span Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, Little Village and North Lawndale, the report found.
And a 2021 Block Club analysis found drivers on the West Side were stopped the most frequently by police — but the vast majority of stops didn’t lead to tickets.
During a Tuesday morning meeting by The Leaders Network at Columbus Park Refectory, 5701 W. Jackson Blvd., West Side faith leaders called for an independent, thorough investigation into Reed’s death, saying the incident raises questions.
“There are so many unanswered questions,” said Janette Wilson, senior adviser to the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. “Have they been reassigned? … What happened to the officers? What are their backgrounds? We need an independent investigation.”
The Rev. Ira Acree said the group wants a non-city agency to investigate the shooting.
Local organizations — including Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, GoodKids MadCity and the Chicago Torture Justice Center — are planning a news conference about the shooting 6 p.m. Tuesday outside 11th Police District headquarters, 3151 W. Harrison St.
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