At this month’s Public Newsroom, we unpacked the emerging narratives surrounding this recent case of police brutality and created guidelines for news outlets reporting on it.

By Alexandra Arriaga

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Since Chicago police officer Eric Stillman shot and killed 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Little Village, the story has been picked up all over local and national news. 

Last week, City Bureau held a Public Newsroom led by Little Village “barrio journalist” and South Side Weekly Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Serrato and Pilsen-raised photojournalist Sebastián Hidalgo. They discussed the media’s responsibility in telling Toledo’s story to serve those most impacted and hold those in power accountable. 

Here’s what we learned. 

Journalists have a responsibility to scrutinize official narratives early on in the reporting of a story, and they can’t take police accounts at face value

Before the public knew Toledo was 13 and anyone saw bodycam footage of the March 29 shooting, Chicago Police Department spokesman Tom Ahern called the incident an “armed confrontation,” in a tweet and also shared a photo of a gun recovered on the scene. On April 5, Mayor Lori Lightfoot called for the need to "lessen the allure of a gang life” and that "gangs are preying upon our most vulnerable, corrupting these young minds." On April 10, prosecutors alleged Toledo was holding a gun when the officer shot him.

Once the video of the shooting was eventually released showing Toledo had his hands raised when he was shot, the media brought the official account of the incident into greater question. The Cook County State’s Attorney’s office said the details prosecutors issued about Toledo having a gun in his hand the moment he was shot were inaccurate. 

South Side Weekly staff wanted to disrupt the prevailing narratives that Toledo was at fault for his own murder. They dedicated an issue to Toledo, with an illustration of him on the cover and the headline “We Are Adam Toledo.” Jacqueline Serrato grew up in Little Village and spent a lot of time around the same block where Toledo was killed. She says the issue aimed to “remind people that he was a child and his life and death are representative of the life and environment he came up in.” She’s noticed that the media often report police accounts as truths, sometimes verbatim. These practices ultimately “took care of criminalizing Adam.” 

Important history and context is often left out of breaking news reporting

Sebastián Hidalgo shared memories of what it was like growing up fearing the police—a fear that was passed down from his mother when she would say, “I’m gonna call the cops if you don't go to sleep.” Growing up with this fear is common for kids in Pilsen and Little Village, he said. 

Hidalgo believes it’s important to share the context of the neighborhood, the people and their relationship to police more broadly when reporting on a police shooting. He noted the work of WBEZ’s Maria Zamudio and Injustice Watch’s Carlos Ballesteros as two reporters who highlighted the complicated and nuanced relationship that Mexicans in Little Village have with police, their fear to criticize the government and their own sense of personal responsibility.

Serrato also noted the importance of bringing in the political context from the last four years and even the long history of Mexican people. This history is why there’s often a sense of exclusion, of wanting to be accepted, she said.

“It’s important to understand the history of the neighborhood but also Mexicans as a people. As a collective, Mexicans carry a lot of trauma, these are Native people that were colonized,” she said. “There’s a lot of historical, ancestral trauma that we carry. Add to that trauma four years of Trump who was actively denigrating Mexican people and brown people.”

The power of visual journalism

Before Toledo’s family or the public were able to see the bodycam video of the shooting, accusations of gangbanging, scrutiny of his mother and questions as to why he was out late at night in the first place circulated online and in the media. The video’s release brought more questions and Hidalgo said this footage shouldn’t be the end all be all to the visual telling of the story. He believes the police body camera footage should be scrutinized as if it is a police quote itself.

“I question how the video was released, what was shown, frozen, what was edited, you have big red arrows that point to specific things, that gets taken in at face value,” Hidalgo said. “I worry that while more of these videos come out to hold police accountable, people will become more desensitized.”

Hidalgo said newsrooms should prioritize visual journalism outside of police camera footage. It adds important context to the reporting. He believes the absence of photo editors in most newsrooms often contributes to a lack of photojournalism to accompany horrific police videos which further desensitizes the public.

Let the public decide whether to view traumatizing police footage or not

At the same time, these videos are important public information, Serrato said. She stressed that reporters should respect the agency of news consumers to decide whether to watch something possibly traumatizing. 

“I can also respect newsroom decisions not to show the video, it can definitely be traumatizing especially to the community that’s most affected,” Serrato said. “However, in the case of Adam, the community really wanted to see the video, and a lot had to do with the police narrative that wasn’t making sense locally. People had too many questions and wanted to see the video to see if police were telling the truth.”

Visually, South Side Weekly chose to use an illustration to accompany their coverage commemorating Toledo’s life.  “The cover of the issue is a beautiful image of Adam Toledo, his eyes look like they're smiling, it appears to be an image of a boy, the colors are very soft and juvenile,” Serrato said. “It was important to portray [him] as a 13-year-old, that was the goal of our visual team.”

What do we want to see from journalists writing about this?

Those who attended the Public Newsroom shared ideas about what they would like to see in news reporting on Toledo and on how journalists should report on police shootings in Chicago’s neighborhoods. 

Here are a few of their declarations for what people expect from media: 

  • Center the communities most impacted. The reporter should be from or familiar with the communities they are reporting on and knowledgeable about the people, history and politics of the area. 

  • Intentionally include diverse sources from different races, genders, ages and income levels and backgrounds.  

  • When journalists report on a breaking news story and engage traumatized people, they should maintain relationships with their sources and follow their stories and how they recover, respond and ultimately heal from their trauma. 

  • When journalists bring up  sensitive issues such as anti-Blackness or community divisions on policing, stories should include context on where these tensions come from and make space for one-on-one personal conversations among community members

Want to know more?

If you missed the Public Newsroom last week, you can catch the recording here.

Only got 10 minutes? Listen to us recap some of our takeaways on City Cast Chi:

And as always, we compiled some further reading on the topic: 

South Side Weekly

More coverage

Further reading

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