Video

Killed on Camera

In 2003, Chicago policeman Alvin Weems shot a young man dead in the 95th Street subway station on the city’s south side. A police department spokesman claimed that Weems had been surrounded by seven men who were “trying to defeat the arrest” of a man who had gotten into a fistfight, and that Weems, fearing for his life, had fired his weapon, killing 23-year-old Michael Pleasance. But there were no seven men, Weems did not fear for his life, and his account of what had taken place was contradicted by footage from CTA video cameras. Despite seeing the footage, Weems supervisors and even the police superintendent covered up the real story.

John Conroy exposed the crime and its coverup in the article, Killed on Camera, published in the Chicago Reader in April 2007. The video, with Conroy’s narration, can be found on YouTube, where it has had 1.8 million hits.

Conroy’s article can be read in its entirety here.