Chicago officer charged following video of shots fired at two teens in car

Associated Press in Chicago
Friday 16 September 2016 23.24 BST

A Chicago police officer who was videotaped firing shots that injured two black teenagers inside a car was indicted on federal civil rights charges.

US attorney Zachary Fardon said in a statement that 41-year-old Marco Proano was indicted Thursday on two counts of deprivation of rights after he allegedly used unreasonable force while on duty on 22 December 2013. Each count of the indictment is punishable by up to ten years in prison.

The release doesn’t detail the allegations but police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that the indictment stems from an incident captured on dashboard camera video that was released last year by a retired judge who had handled a criminal trial involving one of the teenagers.

The video shows the officer firing his handgun multiple times – more than a dozen, according to an attorney for the families that filed a lawsuit – into a car occupied by the two teenagers, who posed no apparent threat. The car had been pulled over for speeding.

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