Candlelight vigil held in Aurora for 19-year-old killed in officer-involved shooting
Around 100 people gathered for a candlelight vigil in Aurora for Christopher Lepe, 19, on Thursday evening.
Held outside the Aurora Police Department headquarters at 1200 East Indian Trail Road in Aurora, the vigil – made up of community members and Lepe's family – remembered Lepe, who was identified Thursday by the Kane County Coroner's Office as the individual fatally shot by Aurora police on Wednesday following a vehicle chase.
Silver, star-shaped balloons were given out to those attending the vigil. A community member set up candles in the center of the Aurora Police Department parking lot, where the group had gathered. Several people carried signs reading 'We are Christopher' and 'Justice for Christopher.'
At the vigil, Lepe's mother, Yanet, expressed her distress at not having seen Lepe's body yet to identify him as her son.
'Above everything else, I need to know that that is my son,' organizer Pablo Puga said on Yanet Lepe's behalf, translating her words from Spanish to English. 'I don't know if that is my son.'
At Thursday's vigil, attendees demanded answers about the circumstances of Lepe's death.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, a man who police say displayed a weapon following a car chase was shot and killed by Aurora police on the city's East Side, according to past reporting.
According to a press release from the Geneva Police Department that Geneva officials said was a related incident, the man had previously been stopped by Geneva police for allegedly being intoxicated. The man refused to exit his car and drove away, dragging the officer a short distance in the parking lot on the 1500 block of South Randall Road, the release said. The Geneva officer was taken to Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva with serious injuries, but is listed in stable condition, the release from Geneva police said.
Around 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Aurora police responded to a mutual aid request attempting to locate a man wanted in connection with an aggravated battery to a Geneva police officer, according to past reporting. Upon locating the individual using the license plate of his vehicle and a description of the suspect, Aurora police pursued him after they said he refused to stop. Officers ultimately stopped the individual near Route 25 and Ashland Avenue in Aurora, police said.
Police said the driver displayed a weapon, and two Aurora police officers discharged their guns at the driver, who was struck by gunfire, a release from the police department said on Wednesday. Officers performed aid on the man until he was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later, officials said.
The man killed was later identified as Christopher Lepe, 19, of Aurora, according to a press release from the Kane County Coroner's Office.
The Kane County Major Crimes Task Force has launched an investigation into the officers' actions. No officers from the Aurora Police Department will be involved in the investigation, officials have said. Three officers from the city have been placed on administrative leave – two who were involved and one who was present during the shooting, which is standard procedure for officer-involved deaths, according to a press release from the Aurora police.
At the vigil on Thursday, Lepe's family and community members criticized the information that had and hadn't been released to the public about the shooting.
'We do find it very, very suspicious that the footage … still has not been released,' Puga said at the vigil. Chants of 'We want to see the video' and 'Let her see her son' erupted throughout the crowd as Lepe's family and community members spoke.
Body-worn camera footage of the shooting will not be released yet, Kane County State's Attorney Jamie Mosser said at a press conference at Aurora City Hall on Wednesday. Mosser said Wednesday that the investigation will wait at least 72 hours before interviewing the involved officers, and that the SAFE-T Act requires police officers not view this footage before giving a statement or making a police report about an incident like this. Mosser said they plan to release the footage at a later date.
Officials at Wednesday's press conference said they cannot yet release the identity of the officers involved or any details on the weapon police said the driver displayed.
'We don't want to jump to any conclusions,' George Gutierrez, of Aurora, said at the vigil. 'We know that they like to cover things up. At the same time, if it was justified, we still want answers.'
At the vigil, Lepe's brother, Brian Lepe, said that a Kane County detective showed him an image of Lepe during the incident.
The Aurora police released two still images from police dashboard cameras from the incident on Thursday evening. They reiterated that body-worn camera footage would be released at a later date 'to comply with provisions of the SAFE-T Act and not interfere with the independent review process.'
'You see this mother crying, and you have the nerve to release a blurry picture,' Puga said outside the police department about the photos released by the Aurora police.
At around 8 p.m., the individuals gathered at the vigil Thursday marched away from the police department down Indian Trail Road chanting 'justice for Chris.' They returned to the police department building at about 8:30 p.m., still chanting.
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