Crime & Law
Adam Toledo’s Family Sues the City Again Over 13-Year-Old’s Death — This Time in Federal Court
An image from body camera video released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability shows an area near the scene of the fatal shooting of Adam Toledo on March 29, 2021. (WTTW News via COPA)
The family of Adam Toledo, the 13-year-old who was shot and killed by a Chicago police officer after a brief foot chase in March 2021, sued the city again on Tuesday, refiling the wrongful death lawsuit against the city and Chicago Police Department in federal court.
The family’s high-stakes lawsuit had been set to go to trial just days after the fifth anniversary of Adam’s death in Cook County Circuit Court in early April, but stalled immediately as lawyers filed dozens of pre-trial motions.
That prompted Adeena Weiss Ortiz, the lead lawyer for Elizabeth and Marco Toledo, Adam’s parents, to drop that lawsuit, while promising the fight to hold the city and Officer Eric Stillman accountable for Adam’s death was not over.
Tuesday would have been Adam’s 19th birthday, Weiss Ortiz said.
“For more than five years, Adam’s family has carried the unbearable weight of losing a 13-year-old child whose life ended in a dark alley at the hands of a Chicago police officer,” Weiss Ortiz said in a statement. “This filing represents the family’s continued fight for the truth, for accountability, and for justice. This shooting was preventable.”
A spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Law declined to comment on pending litigation. After the lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court was dropped, the spokesperson said the city was prepared to defend a new wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Toledo family “when and if that happens.”
Weiss Ortiz said a federal courtroom is the “proper venue” to pursue their claim that Adam’s death was caused by the violation of his constitutional and civil rights.
“Adam’s death was not the product of an unavoidable ‘split-second’ decision, but rather the foreseeable result of a continuous series of escalating tactical choices, policy violations, failures in de-escalation, failures in supervision and systemic institutional deficiencies that the city of Chicago had been warned about for years,” Weiss Ortiz said.
Adam was killed by Stillman in the early morning hours of March 29, 2021, after the city’s gunshot detection system detected eight shots near 24th Street and Sawyer Avenue in Little Village.
Stillman and his partner responded to the alert at 2:36 a.m., and encountered Adam and Ruben Roman, 21.
Stillman detained Roman and then chased Adam down a nearby alley. Adam was carrying a firearm in his right hand, but began dropping it and put his arms in the air as he turned to face Stillman, alongside a fence in the alley. Stillman fired one shot at the boy, striking him in the chest, according to video captured by the officer’s body-worn camera.
Roman was acquitted in November 2022 on charges he fired at parked cars alongside Adam.
Lawyers for the Toledo family plan to argue to a federal jury that not only are the city and CPD responsible for Adam’s death because Stillman used excessive force against the teen, but also because CPD was negligent in hiring Stillman in 2015.
In addition, Stillman used force repeatedly against members of the public but was not disciplined by the city, lawyers allege.
Stillman joined the Chicago Police Department after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs determined that he suffered from a stress disability as a result of his service in the military.
Chicago taxpayers paid two law firms $2 million between June 2022 and December 2025 to defend the lawsuit filed by Adam’s parents, according to documents obtained by WTTW News through the Freedom of Information Act.
Former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx declined to file criminal charges against Stillman in connection with the death of Adam, who never pointed the gun at the officer. Foxx said the entire series of events occurred “within one second.”
Stillman’s belief that he was in danger of imminent harm was reasonable “given the totality of the circumstances surrounding the incident,” Foxx determined.
After a separate investigation, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability urged that Stillman be fired, determining he used excessive force against the 13-year-old.
Stillman has not returned to active duty with the CPD since the shooting.
Adam’s death forced CPD to accelerate long-stalled efforts to develop a policy governing when officers can chase those suspected of committing crimes. But it would not be until June 2022 that police brass implemented CPD’s first-ever foot-chase policy and promised it would protect the safety of officers, the public and those being pursued.
A probe by the U.S. Department of Justice completed in 2017 found that too many police chases in the city were unnecessary or ended with unjustified shootings. That investigation led to the 2019 federal court order that requires CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers, known as the consent decree.
Adam would still be alive if the city had complied with the consent decree’s requirements, the lawsuit alleges.
That agreement required CPD to craft and implement a policy telling officers when they are allowed to give chase, a demand that went unfulfilled until after the fatal shooting.
Adam’s death also served to amplify criticism that the city’s gunshot detection system, ShotSpotter, contributed to the overpolicing of Black and Latino neighborhoods without making residents any safer.
Mayor Brandon Johnson terminated the city’s contract with ShotSpotter, and the city stopped using the system in September 2024.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
