The mayor also announced the formation of a police task force that will study ways to improve one of the nation’s largest police departments, and make recommendations to the City Council by May 2016.
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CHICAGO – Mayor Rahm Emanuel ousted Chicago’s police superintendent on Tuesday, responding to an uproar over a white officer shooting a black teenager 16 times and anger at the Police Department for resisting, for more than a year, to release a video of the fatal shooting. This move comes in the wake of the release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video, which shows white officer Jason Van Dyke shooting 17-year-old McDonald 16 times.
“Police officers are only effective if they’re trusted by all Chicagoans whoever they are and wherever they live in the city”, said Emanuel, vowing more oversight and to take steps to rebuild trust between police and the communities where they serve.
Emanuel appointed the city’s chief of detectives John Escalante to oversee the police department until a permanent replacement was found.
In a letter to Attorney General Lynch Tuesday that was obtained by NBC News Chicago, Mandigan cited questions about the Chicago Police Department’s “training, equipment and supervision of officers”, and whether there’s a “pattern or practice of discriminatory policing” as reasons for an investigation.
The shooting of teenager Laquan McDonald by a Chicago police officer continues to be a hot topic across the country but it might not have come to light if not for one man and some of his colleagues.
The mayor said McCarthy had become “a distraction”.
Police have said McDonald was carrying a knife, and an autopsy revealed that he had the hallucinogenic drug PCP in his system.
“I said a long time ago that upon the completion of the investigation, the video would be released”, Emanuel said.
In Chicago, the outrage has been focused on the killing of McDonald in October 2014.
Boykin said in an interview that he was “hopeful” the hearing of the Cook County board of commissioners – the city’s first official political meeting focused on Homan Square beyond protests and hearings for an ongoing Guardian lawsuit – would precipitate change, “and that we can shut [Homan Square] down in terms of illegal detentions and off-the-books detentions”.
Chicago police cars are set up so audio records along with video, police have said.
In fact, Officer Van Dyke was only arrested in the first place because the city was forced to release the video, which they knew showed something so heinous that they could not release it without charging the officer. Protesters called for the immediate punishment of McCarthy, Mayor Emanuel and Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvarez for the murder and the cover-up of the crime. “It was not the Chicago Police Department investigating this incident”. Emanuel spokeswoman Kelley Quinn said the city was “looking into” releasing it. At the time, authorities said he was armed and pointed a gun at police.
Meanwhile, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is calling for a federal probe into the Chicago Police Department’s practices.
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His mother, Dorothy Holmes, said Tuesday that wasn’t the case and he was running away from police.
