Alvarez said last week that she had decided a few weeks earlier to charge Van Dyke with murder and was planning to announce charges in a month.
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But over the next two years, the number of homicides and other violent crimes dropped significantly and Emanuel praised McCarthy for modernizing Chicago’s police force, getting illegal guns off the streets and pushing a community policing strategy that the mayor said had reduced overall crime rates to a record low.
In a matter of 30 seconds after arriving on scene, Van Dyke fired on McDonald and continued to do so after his body laid lifeless on the ground, the video of a police dashcam confirms.
After speaking to the officers involved, longtime Chicago Police Department spokesman and now Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden faced news cameras. People “have a right to be angry” about the events, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy told CNN after Van Dyke was charged.
In Chicago, the outrage has been focused on the killing of McDonald.
Charging documents outlined the timeline of events the night of October 20, 2014, when police first received reports of someone breaking into trucks on 41st and Kildare Avenue shortly before 10 p.m. After the shooting, Van Dyke was placed on paid desk duty.
The silent Chicago video shows McDonald walking down the middle of a four-lane street.
That autopsy doesn’t become public until February after the Invisible Institute, a Chicago-based nonprofit journalism organization, files a Freedom of Information Act request. The city went to court to prevent its release. A judge sided with the journalist, and the footage was released last week.
Also Tuesday, relatives of another person fatally shot previous year by Chicago police stepped up their pleas to have the squad vehicle video made public. They rallied day after day, peacefully interrupting holiday shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend. A user posted on an online forum that he meant to shoot 16 white students-ostensibly because that’s how many times McDonald was shot. For this reason alone, Emanuel should resign immediately.
A rally is planned for Tuesday afternoon.
One of the key questions of the shooting is what happened to footage from security cameras at a nearby Burger King.
At noon, Emanuel is expected to address media.
The video shows Van Dyke, 37, getting out of his police SUV and shooting McDonald multiple times.
He walked out of jail on bond Monday evening after a judge set his bail at $1.5 million. Fearing for his life and the lives of his fellow officers, Van Dyke shot the teen in the chest out of self-defense. None of the complaints resulted in disciplinary action, but a jury awarded a Chicago man $350,000 after finding that Van Dyke had used excessive force during a traffic stop.
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A man who claimed to be on a mission to kill “white devils” was arrested before he could do any damage.
