Police have said McDonald had threatened them with a knife and slashed at the tires and windshield of a patrol vehicle.
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Acree and Hatch said blacks in the city are upset about the shooting and because city officials and the Police Department refused for several months to release the video until ordered to do so by a judge.
Seventeen-year-old Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times.
In SC last month, state police released dash-cam video of the shooting of Zachary Hammond, a white 19-year-old, but only after the investigation was completed and a prosecutor decided that the officer would not face charges. Lawyers for McDonald’s family who have seen the video say it shows the teen with a small knife and walking away from officers.
Michael Robbins, the attorney for McDonald’s family said, “There was a narrative put out there by the Chicago police, by the Union initially that the police officer had to shoot him in self defense, that he was approaching the police officer and lunged at the police officer with a knife is not true”.
Nearly everyone who has seen the video says the images are graphic and show McDonald being repeatedly shot while lying on the ground.
But veteran activist Rev Jesse Jackson has called for the officer to be charged and had said there is a need for an overhaul of the city’s police department. They said the department did not have the legal right to withhold the video because other agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation are the ones investigating, not Chicago police.
“I think that when crimes are committed by people sworn to uphold the law, who have been empowered by citizens to do that, then they have to be held accountable-and I think releasing this video is part of making that accountability happen”, Chapman said.
Dan Herbert, the attorney representing Van Dyke, said the officer is concerned about the safety of his wife and children in the event the video prompts violence. Leaders said they planned to discuss how to handle public reaction to the video given the unrest other police shootings across the nation have spurred. In this case, unfortunately, it appears an officer violated that trust at every level.
Officials declined to say exactly when they would make the video public.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office issued a statement Thursday afternoon criticizing the officer.
Cook County State’s prosecutor Anita Alvarez has said a decision is expected this week on whether or not to charge Mr Dyke over the shooting.
A judge has ordered that the potentially inflammatory video be made public by Wednesday.
The city has already reached a settlement with Mr McDonald’s family, agreeing in April to pay $5m, even though the family had not filed a lawsuit.
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Steez noted that Emanuel closed 50 schools in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods during his first term, and was slow to respond after a group of residents went on a hunger strike this summer over a plan, now partially reversed, to close a high school in a predominantly African-American neighborhood on the city’s southeast side. Protests over police actions have rocked a number of USA cities over the past year and a half. “Be passionate. Be peaceful”, read a weekend editorial in the Chicago Tribune. “We all live here”, Angelo said.
