Caption + This image provided by the Chicago Police Department shows an officer safety alert flyer the department issued in 2012 regarding a knife that’s really a gun.
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Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement late Friday that the city’s Independent Police Review Authority, not the Police Department, conducts all investigations of officer-involved shootings and that the agency was given the case report and videos.
With aftershocks from the release of dashcam video showing McDonald’s shooting still rumbling through Chicago, a dashcam video of yet another fatal police shooting is about to be released.
“These documents reveal the molecular structure of the “code of silence” that starts on the scene and it continues through the supplemental reports they filed months later”, Kalven said. A long wait often invites accusations that city leaders and police are seeking to hide some wrongdoing or endeavoring to cover something up. “This is not a departure from the norm … this is how the institution responds”.
The head of the Chicago branch of the Fraternal Order of Police could not be reached for comment.
The video did not show McDonald lunging toward officers as some of them claimed, although there appears to be a silver object in McDonald’s right hand. Suggesting there is a culture of silence in the department is wrong, he said.
“In defense of his life, Van Dyke backpedaled and fired his handgun at McDonald, to stop the attack”, one report read.
That officer’s partner, sitting beside her in the SUV, heard the shots but did not see who fired, according to the report. At least three other officers, including his partner, supported key details in Van Dyke’s portrayal of events. When they tried to corral him with their vehicle, the teen popped the tire on their vehicle with a knife.
Van Dyke told an investigator that McDonald was “swinging the knife in an aggressive, exaggerated manner” and that McDonald “raised the knife across the chest” and pointed it at Van Dyke, according to one police report.
Several officers, including Jason Van Dyke who was charged with murder in 17-year-old Laquan McDonald’s death, said in official police reports that the boy approached officers armed with a knife.
A police commander’s preliminary report ruled the shooting was justified hours later. According to the records, Van Dyke and five other cops claim that McDonald was advancing toward officers in a threatening way, despite the fact that the video shows him walking away. Van Dyke, who shot McDonald 16 times, was charged with first-degree murder Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015.
In the video, McDonald is twitching as more bullets struck him, but makes no move to get up after falling to the ground.
“We have a process called the election”, he said.
Recommended: Can you pass the written police officer exam? . But one of the police reports said the knife’s “blade was in the open position”.
What’s on video and what the officers reported could all be true, said Dean Angelo, president of the Chicago police officer’s union, because each officer had “a different perspective”, which could vary significantly from the fixed auto camera. Many members said that they’d be shocked if he did and would expect that it would never happen.
“I would always examine the evidence and go by what I saw, not what was in the report”, said Davis. City officials fought in court for months to keep the video out of the public’s eye, before deciding in November not to fight a judge’s order.
It’s unclear whether the newly released documents could lead to more officers being prosecuted.
The US attorney’s office is investigating the issue, and a number of officials have called for a broader intervention by the US Justice Department.
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The “code of silence” has been documented in other police misconduct cases. Two days after the News 5 broadcast, Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired Mr. McCarthy.
