Johnson was running from police when Officer George Hernandez arrived and seconds later shot him in the back, Oppenheimer said.
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Either way, if the trial proceeded as scheduled, “a significant portion of the potential jurors will be vividly aware of accusations that the Chicago Police Department tried to cover up a citizen’s murder at the hands of one of its officers”, the motion said.
Later Tuesday, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said she sent a letter to the US attorney general asking the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to open an investigation into the Chicago Police Department to see whether its practices violate the Constitution and federal law. Shortly after that, the city released a patrol-car video of the shooting.
“It is a step in the right direction, and I can only say finally, finally, finally after 14 months of fighting the city on this, they’re now going to release the video”, Oppenheimer said Thursday.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s next scandal will probably be Chicago’s appalling public housing situation.
Protesters converged on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile commercial district on Black Friday in the wake of the video release of the Laquan McDonald killing.
This story will be updated.
“I think the mayor took a very positive step today by agreeing to expand and encourage the federal investigation to grow larger”, Rauner said. It used the same argument in the McDonald case before a judge ordered the video’s release; Van Dyke was charged with murder the same day the video was made public.
Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s office will investigate the possibility of criminal charges against the officer, her office said Wednesday.
When he was charged with first-degree murder last week, officer Jason Van Dyke became the 15th officer in the country to face such charges in 2015. For more than a year, the city actively delayed releasing police dash-cam footage of the officer continuing to fire even as McDonald crumpled to the ground.
“We have a long road ahead of us as a city and I welcome people from many views to help us do what exactly we need to do”, Emanuel said Thursday.
For years, Chicago has consistently fought – hard – in the courts, saying the release of videos would jeopardize active investigations. Sometimes, civilian cellphone video plays a role in prodding a city to release its own police video, as happened in Charleston, South Carolina, earlier this year.
Alvarez says she will not resign, despite calls for her to do so. After watching the video many times, Oppenheimer said there was nothing in Johnson’s hand. City officials have said they have not released the video because it is part of an open investigation.
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Oppenheimer has seen the video in his role as the family’s attorney in a wrongful death lawsuit against Hernandez and the city, but was prohibited by court order from showing it to the public.
