Chief of Detectives John Escalante is named interim chief.
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Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he is not going to resign in the wake of the release of the Laquan McDonald police shooting video.
McCarthy was not at the news conference.
Seeking to calm growing criticism about his administration’s handling of police misconduct cases, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has appointed a new “police accountability task force”.
Protesters called for the resignation of the police superintendent and a top prosecutor over the case which took the prosecutor 13 months to announce charges.
Madigan said that she also asked for the investigation of the department’s “provision of training, equipment and supervision of officers to allow them to do their job safely and effectively; and whether there exists a pattern or practice of discriminatory policing”.
“The Chicago pundits opined yesterday that Chicago police superintendents are hired to be fired”.
The turmoil in Chicago isn’t unique to the city.
About 150 demonstrators endured almost freezing temperatures to rally outside Chicago police headquarters on Tuesday evening, in a protest led by the city’s chapter of the Black Lives Matter group.
In Chicago, the outrage has been focused on the killing of McDonald.
“The murder of Laquan McDonald is really synonymous to the murder of Emmett Till”, she said, referring to the infamous 1955 lynching of a 14-year-old black boy in MS, after he reportedly whistled at a white woman.
“The symbiotic relationship between prosecutors and law enforcement and their failure to hold police officers accountable has fueled mistrust between the African American community and law enforcement”, Crump wrote in his Time op-ed.
Jason Van Dyke, the officer who shot McDonald, was charged with first-degree murder hours before the video was released.
“Now is the time for fresh eyes and new leadership”, Emanuel said. The city is now conducting a nationwide search for his successor. In fact, the police department denied multiple Freedom of Information Act requests to make the footage public. Last weekend, they peacefully interrupted Thanksgiving holiday shopping.
If Emanuel approved that payout without seeing the video that contradicted the official “justified shooting” posture of his Police Department then he was irresponsible with the purse strings of cash-strapped Chicago. Saying Van Dyke had “violated [the public’s] trust”, Emanuel condemned the shooting and said the video would be released as ordered on November 24.
After spending the Thanksgiving holiday in jail, Van Dyke was freed on a US$1.5 million bail on Monday. And was able to use that experience to head up the police departments in Newark and Chicago.
Van Dyke was the subject of 18 civilian complaints over 14 years, including allegations that he used racial epithets and excessive force.
The Washington Post was one of many voices to indict McCarthy.
At the time, Emanuel praised him for knowing how to run a large police force and said the city needed “a leader with Garry’s depth of experience and a track record for delivering results”. Jabari Dean, 21, was arrested and accused of threatening to kill students and staff at the University of Chicago.
“This is my only warning”. I am to do my part to rid the world of the white devils. “They pick up guns for all the wrong reasons, you know, and why, I do not know”.
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Jabari Dean, 21, allegedly admitted to posting the threat when federal agents swooped on his Chicago home. He is facing up to five years in prison.
