After the video was released today, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez announced that no charges would be filed against Hernandez. During the press conference, authorities showed enhanced photographs of the video that indicate Johnson was carrying a gun at the time of the shooting.
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Michael Oppenheimer, an attorney for the mother of Johnson, told FOX 32 last week that Johnson got out of a vehicle and ran, but was chased down by officers and shot five times.
A 9-mm handgun was recovered from Johnson, loaded with 12 rounds, the state’s attorney’s office said.
Alvarez has been criticized for not filing charges long ago in the McDonald case, in which the video shows the teen veering away from officers when Van Dyke opens fire from close range.
Meanwhile, heads continued to roll, with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel firing the administrator of the city’s police review board less than a week after he axed Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.
The Justice Department investigation “may take decades to finish”, said Jonathan Smith, a dean at the University of the District of Columbia law school and former chief of the Justice Department’s Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division.
“The same systems that fail community members also failed conscientious officers by creating mistrust between law enforcement and the citizens they are sworn to serve and protect”, Lynch said.
The civil rights probe into the Chicago Police Department comes after the release of a police dashboard camera video showing the October 2014 death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. A squad-car video of the shooting sparked days of protests, criticism of how Emanuel and other officials handled the incident, and calls for federal intervention.
Holmes filed a federal lawsuit against Chicago police shortly after her son’s death, and the defendants filed a motion to block the video’s release.
The FBI, DOJ and the Independent Police Review Authority are all now reviewing the McDonald case, including claims that police tampered with surveillance video from a nearby Burger King restaurant that captured the shooting.
“What we are looking at is whether or not the police department has engaged in unconstitutional policing”, Lynch said in announcing the investigation, which she said had been requested by several officials and activists.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said her agency would examine the city’s policing tactics, including its use of deadly force, racial and ethnic disparities in officers’ activities, and its accountability mechanisms.
Emanuel had called a federal civil rights investigation “misguided”, but he reversed course last week and said he would welcome it. On Monday, Emanuel said that he pledged “complete cooperation” with the federal investigation. The second shot severed his jugular vein and exited through his eye socket, the state’s attorney’s office said.
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A Justice Department investigation of the Cleveland police force ended earlier this year in a sweeping settlement. The video has also brought up questions of broader institutional corruption that extend far beyond Chicago’s police department.
