Police Brutality / Individual record
James Anderson
The Washington Post's Fatal Force database records James Anderson in a fatal on-duty police shooting on 2015-09-25 in Chicago, IL. Individual circumstances and legal outcome require case-specific review.
- Record ID
- PB-268
- Incident date
- September 25, 2015
- Outcome
- Fatal
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Agency
- Chicago Police Department
- Category
- Fatal on-duty police shooting
- Age (reported)
- 33
What happened
James Anderson, 33, was shot and killed by Chicago police in Humboldt Park on September 25, 2015. His mother Pamela said she called for help because her son was experiencing mental-health difficulties and needed treatment, not because he posed a deadly threat. Police said officers responding to the home saw Anderson with a sharp object, tried using a Taser twice, and fired when he approached them. Pamela Anderson disputed the account, including whether officers used a Taser before firing. Chicago's civilian police-oversight office recorded the shooting as case 1077328 and later released reports and audio. The mother's account and department's competing narrative need to be read separately; a completed oversight file is not itself a criminal conviction.
Investigation & findings
Individual legal and investigative outcome not yet reviewed.
Washington Post Fatal Force v2; 2015–2024
Source record details
- Source incident ID
- 867
- Race code in source
- B
- Race source method
- not_available
- Gender (source)
- male
- Armed status (source)
- knife
- Flee status (source)
- not
- Agency IDs (source)
- 265
Sources & records
- Primary source
- Additional source
- Methodology and national police killings trackingMapping Police Violence · Dataset/methodology
- Fatal Force v2 — fatal on-duty police shootings, 2015–2024The Washington Post · Dataset