The family of Marcellis Stinnette is demanding police in Waukegan, Illinois, release police bodycam footage after the young man was fatally shot and his girlfriend, Tafara Williams, was wounded by police Tuesday night.

On Sunday, during a vigil for the slain 19-year-old, Mayor Sam Cunningham said he aiming for the city to release police body camera footage from the fatal incident over the next few days, but only after the shooting victims' families have reviewed the footage, ABC News reports.

Cunningham, a graduate of Waukegan East High School and the city's first Black mayor, said he is a friend of both the victims' families and said his plan is to have the police body camera video released before Thursday which is the final day before a Freedom of Information Act request can be filed to release the footage publicly.

Williams’ mother has hired legal representation and said she questions the authenticity of officials' accounts of the shooting.

"Tafarra, justice will be served because they left you to speak for the ones that can't speak," Williams' mother Clifftina Johnson said.

The families of the couple have joined with the Rainbow PUSH Coalition to demand police release footage of the shooting and request that the attorney general leads the investigation, per ABC 7.

Activists want the responsible officer to be arrested and charged with both murder and attempted murder for the deadly shooting.

“Whatever the FBI finds we want a special prosecutor brought in,” activist Cylde McLemore, chief of Lake County’s Black Lives Matter chapter, told the Associated Press. “We want the name of the police officer released because firing the police officer only allows him to go to another police department and get a job somewhere else and do this again.”

According to The Daily Herald that covers suburban Chicago news, police responded to a call just before midnight about a suspicious vehicle, but the couple’s family said Stinnette and Williams were just sitting in a car outside Williams' mom's home.

When officers responded to the scene, they said the car sped off and was later intercepted by another police unit. As the second officer approached the car on foot, police said the couple's vehicle reversed and the officer fired his weapon out of fear for his own safety.

"A second officer located the vehicle in the area of MLK and South Street," police commander Edgar Navarro said. "The officer exited the vehicle and the vehicle that he was investigating then began to reverse. The officer fired into the vehicle."

A bystander that witnessed the incident said Williams, the driver of the vehicle, looked “scared” but was compliant with police until things went awry.

"The police officer got out of the car. When he told them to stop, he told her to stop, she was scared. She put her up hands, she started yelling, 'Why you got a gun?' She started screaming. He just started shooting," bystander Darrell Mosier said.

Johnson also noted that her daughter was cooperative with police, saying that the 20-year-old handed over her license when police approached her moments before the shooting.

"When I got there, she said, 'Momma, they just shot us for nothing,'" Johnson told CBS News. "My daughter said she put her hand up and if she didn't put her hand up, she said 'Momma, I would be dead.'"

The family of the woman said she suffered gunshot wounds to her stomach and hand and has been hospitalized since. Though police said Stinnette died at the hospital, his family says that the 19-year-old died at the scene of the shooting, according to ABC 7 Chicago. Police have confirmed that no weapon was found inside the vehicle.

"Why did you shoot? I didn't do nothing wrong. I have a license. You didn't tell me I was under arrest. Why did you just flame up my car like that? Why did you shoot?," Williams asked in a statement from her hospital bed.

According to ABC 7, the two officers have since been placed on administrative leave and the investigation into the case is being handled by the Illinois State Police. On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would join in the investigation at the request of Lake County State's Attorney Michael Nerheim.

The Lake County State's attorney said the investigation will be handed over to his office following the state police’s conclusion of its review. Nerheim confirmed that the case will be available on the state attorney’s website during his investigation into the matter.

“It's important to note the Illinois State Police will conduct this investigation on their own, and that the Waukegan Police Department will play no role whatsoever in the investigation," he said.

The unnamed officer who shot the couple is reportedly Hispanic and has been a part of the Waukegan police department for the last five years. According to the Associate Press, the Waukegan police chief fired the officer Friday for “multiple police and procedure violations” he said in a statement.

On Saturday, protestors gathered in Waukegan to protest the shooting, per The Daily Herald. In one of the most powerful scenes of the gathering, Johnson held her cellphone to a megaphone while her daughter promised to keep fighting for justice for the slain Stinnette from her hospital bed.

Waukegan Police Officer fired after he shot and killed an unarmed black teen.

Marcellis Stinette died at the hospital.

His girlfriend Tafara Williams – still in the hospital.

Tonight, the FBI and ISP are investigating. @ABC7Chicago
pic.twitter.com/EC5k4dBK4A

— Alexis McAdams ABC-7 (@AlexisMcAdamsTV) October 25, 2020

“Don’t allow them to do this to us. No justice, no peace. I won’t sleep until Marcellis gets justice. He didn’t deserve it, and they waited for him to die. No justice, no peace. And my son don’t have a father no more, but I’m fighting for him, and I'm trying to be strong," she said.

Waukegan-Illinois

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