Crime & Law
Trial Starts in Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed by Family of 13-Year-Old Adam Toledo
A high-stakes trial began Monday to determine whether the Chicago Police Department is liable for the death of Adam Toledo, the 13-year-old who was shot and killed by an officer after a brief foot chase in March 2021.
The trial got off to a slow start just days after the fifth anniversary of Adam’s death, which spurred outrage-fueled demonstrations and renewed calls for police reform.
Jury selection is expected to start April 13 and take a full week, with opening statements scheduled for April 20, said Adeena Weiss Ortiz, the lead lawyer for Elizabeth and Marco Toledo, Adam’s parents.
The jury will decide whether the Chicago Police Department was responsible for the “avoidable intentional death of a child.”
The long-delayed lawsuit has already proved costly for taxpayers.
Even before the trial started, the city paid two law firms $2 million between June 2022 and December 2025, according to documents obtained by WTTW News through the Freedom of Information Act.
The trial will refocus attention on the events of the early morning of March 29, 2021, which began when the city’s gunshot detection system detected eight shots near 24th Street and Sawyer Avenue in Little Village.
Officer Eric 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 will also argue that CPD was negligent in hiring Stillman in 2015, 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 before he became a Chicago police officer.
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.
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]
