The graphic video showing the shooting of a black 17-year-old in Chicago sparked protests in the city, but more footage has surfaced. That includes from the vehicle Officer Jason Van Dyke rode in as he briefly followed the 17-year-old McDonald before shooting him 16 times in the middle of Pulaski Road on the Southwest Side on October 20, 2014.
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In the video, McDonald was seen running from police. Within seconds he is struck by bullets and crumples to the ground, his body jerking as he is hit by additional rounds of gunfire.
Chicago’s corporate-controlled media, including two daily newspapers and numerous television stations and regional and suburban papers, showed little interest in the McDonald case, even after it became known that video existed of Van Dyke’s fusillade.
The video, however, shows the officer opened fire as McDonald backed away from officers. Several local branches of the NAACP called for changes to a police review board that they said was too cozy with the department itself and urged a federal investigation into that board.
Leaders of about a dozen community groups met Wednesday night to try to decide on a unified approach.
In charging Van Dyke with murder on Tuesday, Alvarez said that only one police dashboard camera recorded the shooting. Over the past five years, of 400 police shootings in Chicago, the IPRA has found exactly one to be “not justified”. Two 18-year-old Chicago men, Max McKune and Omari Ferrell, were charged with resisting police officers.
Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is joining with Chicago Urban League and Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition to call for the resignation of police superintendent Garry McCarthy and to call for Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to be removed from cases involving police misconduct.
The videos, released on DVDs, included the one widely circulated publicly Tuesday that shows the most complete coverage of the shooting released to date.
The judge ordered the dash-cam recording to be released by Wednesday after city officials had argued for months it couldn’t be made public until the conclusion of several investigations. The police union objects to its release.
Police had initially said McDonald was high on PCP, acting erratically and lunged at the officers with a knife.
But the video tells a different story. Judge Peggy Chiampas said the state’s attorney’s office recommended that the charge be dropped and told London he was free to go.
What continues to roil the black community is that police and prosecutor Alvarez waited 400 days to release the tape, well after a spring election in which Emanuel faced stiff competition and had to undergo the first runoff election in Chicago history, an eyebrow-raising moment for an incumbent in a city renowned for its “machine”-like politics”.
“The vast majority of those who have chosen to express themselves this week have done so peacefully, however we will not tolerate illegal activity and as a result last night four individuals were arrested”, the statement said. Don’t resort to violence in Laquan’s name.
Skirmishes broke out between protesters and police, who surrounded officers after they apparently made arrests.
City officials and community leaders have been bracing for the release of the video, fearing an outbreak of unrest and demonstrations similar to those that occurred in Baltimore, Ferguson, Missouri and other cities after young black men were slain by police or died in police custody.
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