December 4: The city releases hundreds of pages of internal police documents, including reports from officers on the scene who stated that McDonald aggressively approached Van Dyke, in contrast to what can be seen on the dashcam video.
Advertisement
On Sunday, the Better Government Association president, Andy Shaw, published a story in the Chicago Sun-Times in which he offered the BGA’s investigative findings as a starting point for any probe of the Chicago Police Department and what he called its “dystopian culture”. One officer said he believed McDonald was attacking the officers and “attempting to kill them” when Van Dyke opened fire.
“Many things must happen to restore trust in the Chicago Police Department and I welcome efforts and ideas that can help us achieve that important goal”, Mayor Emanuel said in the release.
Friday demonstration, however, was much larger and more diverse in which protesters were chanting “16 shots and you can’t shop” and “say his name: Laquan McDonald”.
The paper said the investigation could be announced this week. They want the resignations of the mayor and states attorney, and they want indictments against Van Dyke’s fellow officers who they say were involved in a cover-up of the shooting. The Justice Department investigation is what a number of the protesters Sunday night were calling for. The calls were made after police dashcam video of the incident was released a full year after the shooting.
In a letter to the US attorney general, Madigan asked for the Justice Department’s civil rights division to review the police department’s use of force, the adequacy of the department’s investigation of officers use of force and misconduct, plus whether there exists a pattern or practice of discriminatory policing by the department.
Prosecutors have charged Van-Dyke with first-degree murder in the 2014 shooting and Mayor Rahm Emanuel forced Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to resign.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson said he hopes the sight of protesters holding a disciplined and non-violent march will prompt the city to “dispense justice and fairness all across the city”.
According to the news release, Emanuel “would welcome the engagement of DOJ on a broad review of the police department”.
“We have called for police reform as it relates to this police department … and we’ve also called for accountability in city government”, said Rose Joshua, president of Chicago South Side NAACP, which had previously called for a Justice Department probe into the city’s police. Fairley is the current General Counsel of Chicago’s Office of the Inspector General and served as an Assistant United States Attorney for eight years.
These are the latest developments in the case involving the 2014 killing of a black teenager by a white police officer who shot him 16 times (all times local). Amid an outcry after the city waited more than a year to release dash-cam footage of Officer Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced this week that he was setting up a special task force to examine, among other things, the city¿s video-release policy. Scott Ando was in charge of IPRA for four years.
Advertisement
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.
