Man Sues City, Saying Police Shot Him At Close Range While He Was Unarmed

By Mae Rice in News on Jun 8, 2016 6:43PM

A man who was shot by police in 2014 is suing the city of Chicago, alleging that police used excessive force against him and shot while he was unarmed and on the ground. He is seeking $15 million in damages.

Police chased down and shot 25-year-old Dominiq Greer on July 4, 2014, an alley encounter caught on surveillance tape that Greer's attorney released Wednesday. Greer was holding a handgun when officers initially stopped him. They had received reports of a man with a gun, according to USA Today, and Greer—who had a previous felony drug conviction—fled because he was scared of "how Chicago Police acts every day."

As Greer fled, he tripped and fell while trying to throw his gun away. Police say Greer's gun fired when it hit the ground, CBS reports. Officer Lawrence Cosban then shot Greer three times, according to Greer's attorney, Eugene Hollander.

In the black-and-white video, which has no audio, Greer struggles to get up—unarmed at this point, according to Hollander—but Cosban shoots him four more times. Hollander says the final four times Greer was shot, he was on the ground, unarmed and shot at close range. (Cosban was standing just eight feet away from him, according to CBS.)

The officers involved—Cosban and his partner, Kevin Spisak—have ben cleared of wrongdoing by the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA). The IPRA report on the case says the two officers chased Greer into an alley, where they ordered him to show his hands and not move. Greer ignored this request, according to the report, at which point Cosban (identified as Officer A in the report) shot him.

Greer says he's bewildered as to why Cosban shot him so many times. He told the Tribune he asked the officer why he was shooting as the shooting was happening.

“They should have did their job and tried to catch me, instead of shooting me," he told CBS today. "If I ain’t never bring no harm to you, why’d you bring harm to me?”

Greer spent eight days in the hospital after the shooting, followed by seven months in jail, according to CBS.

Though the city released hundreds of audio and video files of police-involved shootings on Friday in an effort to improve transparency, footage of Greer's shooting wasn't included, a choice Holland criticized. The video excerpted in the clip above was released by Holland's office.