Security Video Captures Off-Duty Chicago Cop Shooting a Man After Being Attacked

By
Dan Zimmerman
-
73

“‘The tussle that they had, almost had me in tears because she’s a tiny little person. I’m glad that she was able to keep herself together and do what she needed to do to come out alive,’ said the unidentified neighbor,” to a reporter regarding a shooting on Chicago’s south side last month.

That tiny little person was an off-duty cop. Maybe the late Leevon Smith was unaware of that when he grabbed her and reportedly tried to take her handgun.

The video above shows snippets of the attack and struggle for the gun (and has audio of the fight). The video below from across the street shows what led up to the shooting.

There was an argument or animated discussion involving four people in which the off-duty officer became involved, possibly trying to calm things down. Whatever she said, three of the men walked away (5:20). After some more discussion between the officer and Smith she tries to leave as well. That’s when she was grabbed by Smith (6:52).

From fox32chicago.com . . .

An arrest report shows the cop told responding officers that the shooting happened after she witnessed “a verbal argument.” She said Smith grabbed her from behind and reached for her gun “in an attempt to disarm her.”

She and Smith eventually fell to the ground while struggling for the gun, the report states. The officer then opened fire, striking Smith in his abdomen and left hand. Smith was taken into custody and brought to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead on Jan. 20.

Again, it isn’t clear whether Smith or the other three men knew she was a cop when she broke up the argument. If Smith knew and tried to attack her anyway, the collective IQ on Chicago’s south side just has risen incrementally.

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73 COMMENTS

    • “He chose poorly”.

      *Blam!*

      “Baby, I’m sorry!”

      *Blam!*

      “I’m sorry!”

      *Blam!*

      A classic American love story… 😉

      • According to the evening news warning me the video may be disturbing which means an excuse for buttered popcorn…it seems the perp’s distraught relatives need a quick 10 million to settle a lawsuit…well good luck flying that lead balloon.

        • In the eyes of the Woke it really is systemic racism because she’s part of the racist system by being a cop. The Woke aren’t irrational or just popping off with name calling. People need to understand – but not agree with – Woke values and goals to make sense of what they do and say.

    • “She said Smith grabbed her from behind and reached for her gun “in an attempt to disarm her.”

      That tells me that she did a very poor job of carrying her firearm concealed. While in civilian clothes no one should have known she was carrying a gun. The video clearly shows that she’s not openly carrying.
      She needs to dress around her gun. And or find a much better way to carry her gun concealed.
      And that is a subject that is desperately needed in the gun community on how to carry a gun concealed.

      In the end she won. He died. Good!!

    • … that’s a veritable bargain ! It cost $1,953,127 * to shoot down a $50 to $120 hobbyist baloon over Lake Huron.

      *using Pentagon comptroller figures

      • Obiden has recent shot at least 5x AIM-9 at balloons/somethings. Any bets how many replacements the stupid SOB has ordered?

        • most likely hundreds, to go with the NASAMS systems he has pledged to his fellow tyrant pal over in the you crane.
          Gotta keep those Burisma checks coming to junior.

  4. I don’t know what the excitement is about. The Kelly #2 is only a few blocks from my front door. I’m as likely as not to hear that conversation every time I go there for a pint of fried chicken gizzards.

    • “I’m as likely as not to hear that conversation every time I go there for a pint of fried chicken gizzards.”

      Yeah, but they know better than to try and gank you… 🙂

  5. I don’t want to die baby please…he should have been asking for forgiveness for being an idiot. He should have been praying. And screw you non believers I’ll pray for you too.

  8. I would love to have a transcript. This is great audio!! And I still like the police. Someone should add closed captioning as part of this video and still include the audio. And then make this a training aid for beginning Shooters. So they can see what the real world is like. Any woman dressed in civilian clothes is a potential victim for a criminal. Until that female victim pulls out her gun and shoots that criminal.

    Good for her!!!

  9. I’m not sure who they are? But in the video you can hear a Libertarian, liberal, or leftist, telling this woman who just shot her attacker to let him go. This bystander apparently believes there are too many people being locked up in the United States. As compared to other countries.

    • “This bystander apparently believes there are too many people being locked up in the United States.”

      well, they got what they wished for. he will not be locked up.

    • I’m sure that POS Ben Crump will be in town to fix things tomorrow. On the news this AM he’s busy in Raleigh stirring things up this weekend.

      • Benjamin Crump is a rich ambulance chasing lawyer. He is a creation of the people who have helped to create, a general hatred of the police. And one thing I have observed about the people who hate the cops is, that they are not serious people.
        Because they don’t support disarming the police like I do. And issue the cops nightsticks and the training to use them.
        And they don’t support what Colonel Jeff Cooper’s advice to people in the inner cities.

        “give the people of the Cities guns and this way they can solve their own problems.”

  11. Isnt an off duty police officer supposed to identify themselves as a police officer when interjecting themselves into someone else’s bullshit?
    That might have helped however the way things are going she may have been attacked by all four of the argumentars.
    Argumentar is a word Ain’t it?

    • Perhaps in another part of the United states. But in Chicago while wearing civilian clothes I wouldn’t identify as myself as a police officer. Unless it was demanded by Department policy. It’s just like carrying concealed. Potential criminals don’t know who they’re dealing with.

  13. I don’t think she actually searched the dirtbag after she shot him. She walks around and around, at one point, she picks something up, walks around some more – but I never actually see a search of his person. He could have pulled his own gun at any time and put multiple holes in his intended victim!

  14. Typical Chicago. Here’s a guy laid out on the sidewalk and no one stops. Several cars and at least 1 or 2 pedestrians walk nearby and no one comes around to investigate the gunshots. I guess it’s just another day in Chi Town.

  15. Serious question, does anyone make a smaller mag release button? I want one that I really have to focus on before anything falls off my gun.

    Everybody out there seems to make super tactical extra large mag releases that you can operate while wearing oven mitts, because the drills and games we like promote fast reloads, but when I am working in a new holster position or practicing retention I regularly hit that stink’n button and drop the mag. Non-LE in-the-action reloads (this is a non LE setting in my view even is she is a cop) are super rare, but how often does a mag fall out when wrastling?

    Check it out in the second video, 7:12 the magazine falls from her gun, she picks it back up around 7:52

  18. “hero”

    This is why normal people don’t get involved. If you are off duty and step into a fight like this, you better identify yourself early on otherwise stay the fuck out of it. Every hero thinks they can “de-escalate”.

  20. What I see in these videos:

    It looks to the second one starts with someone either stripping or going through a bag throwing stuff out all over the sidewalk.

    I have no sympathy for this guy getting shot while she appears to be defending herself.

    I do not see her as acting like any kind of police officer. That idea seems more like made up fiction to me based on what I see here. No cuffs or checking for other weapons. just letting him lay there. Not even keeping him covered with her gun. Just walking around. I do not see her flashing a badge at her attacker or anyone else. Much less communicating that she is a cop.

    Walking around waiving a loaded gun seems like a very good way to convince a jury that it was not actually self defense.

    I heard in the first video her saying that she she shot someone and yelling at him that she would. Doing this is not going to win much sympathy from a jury. Especially with video of her walking around waiving a loaded weapon.

    • “I do not see her as acting like any kind of police officer. That idea seems more like made up fiction to me based on what I see here. No cuffs or checking for other weapons. just letting him lay there. Not even keeping him covered with her gun. Just walking around. I do not see her flashing a badge at her attacker or anyone else. Much less communicating that she is a cop.

      Walking around waiving a loaded gun seems like a very good way to convince a jury that it was not actually self defense.

      I heard in the first video her saying that she she shot someone and yelling at him that she would. Doing this is not going to win much sympathy from a jury. Especially with video of her walking around waiving a loaded weapon.”

      What you are describing is pretty normal for a person who is affected by the flight or fight response, AKA ‘stress response’, and is in fear.

      It can make you not think clearly during and for a bit after the event is over, its the effect of all the adrenaline flooding the body and the brain putting the body in over drive and then the massive release of cortisol. Defenders actually do things like that sometimes, they walk around waving a gun, they yell “i’ll kill you” or “i’ll shoot you” to the attacker, they don’t think about covering the bad guy in case they get up to continue, etc… . There are lots of effects, she is exhibiting those effects.

      After the amygdala sends a ‘fight or flight’ distress signal, the hypothalamus activates the sympathetic nervous system by sending signals through the autonomic nerves to the adrenal glands. These glands respond by pumping the hormone epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) into the bloodstream. This hormone response also triggers the release of large amounts of cortisol. As this happens the sympathetic nervous system takes over and suppresses the parasympathetic nervous system. The persons body may even move on its own without them telling it to and they may not even be aware of it unless they keep track of your body state consciously. The parasympathetic nervous system is what helps a person determine their body state and think more clearly by calming the down.

      When the threat passes, at some point after the cortisol levels fall and as they fall the parasympathetic nervous system dampens the sympathetic nervous system response and you begin to think more clearly.

      This is why a defender needs to just sit down after a defense shooting/gun use and belly breath. This is going to help those cortisol levels fall and your parasympathetic nervous system dampen the sympathetic nervous system response and calm you down more quickly so when the cops roll up you are not wandering around waving a gun and don’t blurt out stupid stuff without even realizing you are doing it. Training can also help you overcome this effect quickly and put you in control, but even then you should still just sit down and belly breath.

      In a person with correctly functioning sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system the calm down happens pretty quickly, for some people its almost like a switch and seems almost instant. It varies though, and some people it takes longer. Training helps, the routine procedural trained response helps you through it and acts as your guide in your mind and response. But even then some people it still takes longer and it overwhelms them so they keep doing things like, for example, walking around like she does.

      • How many cops are actually being given such lee-way? I say what I do because the only place I might see LEO act this way is in tv shows and movies. What we see here looks more like the average citizen. Someone with little to no academy training. Although I will concede that she might simply have a desk job.

        • cops are still of the human species with the same automatic primal ‘fight or flight sympathetic nervous system stress response’ that all of those in the human species have. That’s why, in her case, it looks more like the average citizen because cops are also ‘average citizens’ in this respect simply because they too are of the human species.

          No one knows how they will actually react in this respect until it happens. Its why ‘reasonable fear’ exists in the law for self defense, it tries to define a ‘boundary’ where that ‘fight or flight’ takes over and tries to account for it but that ‘reasonable fear’ is different for everyone. Its not a ‘cookie cutter’ thing that comes out the same way every time for everyone. For example, what will be ‘reasonable fear’ to say an 80 year old female might be a something not causing fear for an 18 year old female – what will be ‘reasonable fear’ to a female police officer might not be a ‘reasonable fear’ to a male police officer and vice-versa. What will be ‘reasonable fear’ to a law abiding armed citizen facing their ‘reasonable fear’ of a threat of serious bodily harm or death might not seem like a ‘reasonable fear’ to the public and left-wing anti-gun playing ‘arm chair judge-n-jury’ who were not facing the threat of serious bodily harm or death that invoked that ‘reasonable fear’ for the law abiding armed citizen.

          I’m not trying to give an excuse for her actions. But given the circumstances her actions in walking around after the shooting and saying that she shot someone and yelling at him that she would kill him and waiving a loaded weapon around – is all pretty much what that reasonable fear ‘fight or flight sympathetic nervous system stress response’ can cause to happen. Training and practice helps tame and suppress that some to overcome it, and maybe she wasn’t trained or practiced enough – but nothing ever gets rid of that ‘fight or flight sympathetic nervous system stress response’, its hard wired in and kicks in automatically.

    • The thing is this happened a month ago which people may or may not know. COPA is looking into it so she might be on the hook: https://www.chicagocopa.org/case/2023-0000239/

      There is a woman at COPA who seems to hate cops who on their best day do everything by the book and still get fired. Officer Precious Dunn at 25 could of been on a task force because she does not come across as a cop and while she did make some mistakes, those task force cops do not fuck around.

      You do not have to identify yourself as a cop when you are the “victim” of two crimes, you can pretty much shoot and take it from there.
      Robbery – Attempt Strong Arm – No Weapon
      Battery – Aggravated P.O. – Hands, Fists, Feet, No / Minor Injury.

      When she was breaking up the bullshit argument she may have mentioned that she was a cop because the second charge on the very dead Leevon Smith is Aggravated Battery of a Police or Peace Officer.

      I doubt she gets charged but may lose her job but if Lightfoot loses the election there may very well be a shake up at COPA and they will shitcan the woman who sides with the criminals 90% of the time. Take the case of Adam Toledo, Eric Stillman the CPD cop in the case chases this kid who has a gun in his hand down and then has 87/100ths of a second whether to shoot. The kid could have dropped the gun anytime during the foot chase but did less then a second before he was shot and killed with one shot center mass. The family of Adam Toledo filed a wrongful death lawsuit and COPA recommended that Eric Stillman be fired.

      The moral of all of this is if Chicago wants to clean up their city then they had better let cops be cops. If Officer Precious Dunn has witnesses that do say she identified herself as a cop earlier then that satisfies some perceived need that she had to.

      Let me put it this way: You are at a Shell and the guy in front of you pulls out a gun and shoots the clerk in the face. Do you draw and then tell the guy you will shoot him? That gives him the possibility of turning and shooting. You shoot the guy in the back w/o saying a word until “The threat is stopped”. That’s the law.
      Let a jury see the tape if the DA charges you because more then likely the guy is going to shoot you next.

      She was being victimized by a male who was the same size as her and shot until the threat was stopped.

      If I were on the jury I wouldn’t convict her. Why cuff the guy? With three bullets in him he wasn’t going to run away. Plus the shot to the Left Pinky, Left Palm proves he was grabbing her gun.
      https://www.chicagocopa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Case-Report-Redacted.pdf

      Thats what I see in those videos.

        • We do have a reputation to live up to.
          Capone, Dillinger, H.H. Holmes – the first serial killer.
          We were home to the first American gangsters.

      • I don’t disagree with you at all. I do think it isn’t just Chicago though. If we are to have cops in our society then they must be allowed to do their jobs. Otherwise it’s all pointless. To include the election of ‘law makers’.

        • This really all just started with George Floyd.

          The Medical Examiner stated that if they just found the body in the street that he would have put down the cause of death as a drug overdose and heart attack.

          There was no bruising anywhere near his neck and no petechiae in his eyes.
          Derek Chauvin who never knelt on Floyds neck gets 22 years.

          Who would think that a 46 year old man would have 75-90% coronary artery blockage plus was loaded with fentanyl and meth. He died of a heart attack after getting busted for a crime plus he was a career criminal who did a lot of time.

          They call the burning Minneapolis a protest, I say it was a riot.

          Instead of waiting for an ambulance after Floyd said he was having a panic attack they should have just drove him to the hospital where he probably would of still died because he was really having a heart attack.

          Derek Chauvin would still be a Minneapolis cop and did his job.
          He went to prison because it wasn’t allowed.
          Camera angles can be a funky thing.

  21. Armed with rifles, a ‘mudroots’ Detroit group wards off crime > https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/armed-with-rifles-a-mudroots-detroit-group-wards-off-crime/ar-AA17EObh?OCID=ansmsnnews11

    “On the eve of Black History Month this year, a community group based in Detroit went viral after sharing clips on social media of its members, many dressed in all-black and armed with long rifles, assisting women around the city by pumping gas into their vehicles and loading groceries into their cars.

    The group’s open display of guns — broadly legal in Michigan — was greeted by many people not for being threatening but for protecting Black women in dangerous neighborhoods at night.

    The group, New Era Detroit, has been carrying out this kind of public safety work in the city’s most crime-ridden streets for almost a decade.

    “We do this out of love,” Nilajah Alonzo, one of the leaders of New Era Detroit, told Yahoo News.

    The group’s Instagram page includes videos of members escorting child care workers home late at night from a daycare only a block from where a murder had recently taken place. Another social media post shows members hosting a workshop with children on conflict resolution.

    ‘We’re not trying to be crime heroes or anything like that,’ Alonzo said. ‘We’re just trying to educate and uplift our community.’

    …”

    • Sounds like it would be better for those women to be carrying firearms themselves rather than depending on the kindness of strangers that do. It also sounds like it falls the standard concealed carrier and a free version of the body guards the wealthy pay for.

      • If politicians can have armed security so can the people. If anti-gun ‘self-appointed leaders’ (yes, that includes you Shannon Watts) can have armed security so can the people. If the wealthy can have armed security so can those who are not wealthy. If the police can have semi-auto firearms so can the people. If the politicians and wealthy can have armed body guards so can the people who are not wealthy or politicians.

        The list goes on and on. But one thing is for sure – The Second Amendment says ‘… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’

        It does not say ‘…the right of the politicians and wealthy and police to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed’ and it does not say ‘… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, can be infringed’ and it does not say ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, will be infringed’ and it does not say ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, will be controlled by those who do not want the people to keep and bear arms’ and it does not say ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, will be controlled by government permission’ and it does not say ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, will be determined by others in society who do not want the people to keep and bear arms’ and it does not say ‘…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall be a matter of debate and depend on what others want’ and it does not say ‘…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, will be subject to decision of the President or other politicians’

    • That’s the way it should be.
      Guardian Angels who give a shit about the people in their community and are doing something to protect them besides chanting for another Gunm Free Zone law.

  22. Does anyone know what caliber handgun she used?

    I will mail her two bullets so that she doesn’t have to pay out of her own pocket.

  24. Such videos are very useful in the further investigation, but if the quality of the video was higher, for example, like the trucking video here, the thief may have been found sooner. Therefore, I recommend not to skimp on the installation of high-quality surveillance video.

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