Family of Adam Toledo creates nonprofit for at-risk youth
CHICAGO - The family of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, who was shot and killed by Chicago police, is creating a nonprofit to try to keep children from ending up in a situation like his.
It is called "Adam’s Place."
Wednesday would have been Toledo’s 14th birthday. His family held an emotional press conference underneath a mural of Adam in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood.
Mural in Chicago for Adam Toledo.
"What I really want is to have Adam back, and we can’t do that," mother Betty Toledo wrote in a speech that was read by someone else because she was too emotional to speak. "We can try to help other families protect their sons from the temptations that took Adam into the street that night, the night he was killed."
The not-for-profit is set to be about three hours outside of Chicago in a rural area in Wisconsin. The space is meant to give at-risk youth a place to meet new people, take care of animals and, most importantly, keep kids away from the temptations of the streets.
For the first time on Wednesday, we heard from Adam’s older sister.
"He was a little kid, he made one mistake, and everyone is just judging him and assuming things from the last few moments and minutes of his life," said Esmeralda Toledo, the boy’s 24-year-old sister. Nobody, she said, "is deserving the way he died or the bad, negative things being said about him."
The family’s attorney, Joel Hirschhorn, said that Wednesday’s announcement had to be delayed a short time because the artist and the family wanted to paint over what "some cowardly, evil person" had scrawled on the mural.
Hirschhorn said donations have already come in, and he has signed a contract to buy about 71 acres in Potosi in southwestern Wisconsin, including a small barn, a facility boys can sleep in, and land to grow crops and raise livestock. Modeled after Boys Farm in South Carolina, Hirschhorn said the plan is to "take these marginalized, at-risk young boys out of danger, where gangs and guns and violence pervades" and put them into a safe environment where they can learn about farming and "work as a team."
The family is still raising money for "Adam’s Place."
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), which reviews police shootings, is continuing its investigation. On Wednesday, spokesman Ephraim Eaddy said he could not comment on the investigation and that no recommendation about Officer Eric Stillman, who shot Adam, has been made. Stillman was placed on desk duty and in what Eaddy said was an unusual move, the board recommended that the time Stillman remain on desk duty be extended 30 days.
Associated Press contributed to this report.