On March 21, a 26-year-old black man named Dexter Reed was pulled over for a seatbelt violation by four plainclothes Chicago police officers. When Reed refused to comply with orders to roll down his window, the officers surrounded the vehicle and instructed Reed to unlock the doors; in response, Reed pulled out a gun and began shooting, hitting one officer in the forearm. The police returned fire, and Reed was killed. The entire interaction was captured on police body cameras, the footage from which was released to the public last week. The Chicago Office of Police Accountability, a law-enforcement civilian oversight board, confirmed after a review of the footage that Reed “fired first,” and that a handgun was recovered from the front passenger seat of his car.
