Lawyers for the family of slain 25-year-old Ronald Johnson III said the circumstances seen on the video are similar to those in the McDonald shooting.
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Alvarez said that the dashboard video of Ronald Johnson’s shooting was shown to the FBI, who said they were not going to participate in the investigation.
Johnson was leaving a party near Washington Park on the city’s South Side when the auto he was a passenger in was shot at multiple times but an unknown gunman, Alvarez said.
Chicago police said Johnson resisted arrest when officers responded to the call of shots fired and then ran.
“I think all of us know it takes 48 hours to be transparent and to show evidence, but it can take up to 14 months to cover something up”, said Emma Lozano, assistant pastor for Familia Latina Unida. “And regardless of the findings in this investigation, we will seek to work with local officials, residents, and law enforcement officers alike to ensure that the people of Chicago have the world-class police department they deserve”.
Last week, Alvarez stated that she does “not apologize for conducting a meticulous and thorough investigation to build the strongest possible first-degree murder case against Officer Van Dyke”.
In accounts at odds with video of the incident, some officers said McDonald continued moving and attempting to get up, with the knife still in his hand, after falling to the ground after Van Dyke fired his weapon.
Alvarez added that the gun recovered on the scene had Johnson’s DNA on it and matched a live cartridge casing that was found in the vehicle in which Johnson had been a passenger shortly before his confrontation with Hernandez.
“It took them eight months to find witnesses to interview”, Alvarez said, even as she explained that her decision not to charge the officer involved was based on IPRA’s investigation.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he welcomes the investigation and promised the city’s total cooperation in achieving the “mutual goal” of keeping Chicago safe while respecting citizens’ rights. And in Albuquerque, where the government focused on 23 fatal shootings by police, a report released in 2014 said investigators found a troubling pattern of excessive force.
And the U.S. Justice Department is reportedly set to launch an investigation into practices of the Chicago Police Department. Baltimore police are also under federal scrutiny.
On Monday morning, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that the Justice Department has opened an investigation into the Chicago Police Department’s approach to the use of force.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan requested the federal probe to determine whether police target minorities in Chicago. “They’re grainy, dark, blurry, it all happens so fast”, she said. In that case, much controversy has surrounded the release of the video as it is alleged to have been a cover-up by Alvarez and Mayor Rahm Emanuel to avoid bad publicity for Emanuel prior to his mayoral election.
On Sunday, the head of the Independent Police Review Authority, Scott Ando, resigned from his position with the agency, which is charged with investigating allegations of police misconduct. Political upheaval came quickly on the heels of Chicago’s demonstrations, with Emanuel asking for (and getting) Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy’s resignation.
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The State’s Attorney’s Office has shown a video of a white Chicago police officer fatally shooting a young black man – the second such video to be released in as many weeks. “Police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments in circumstances that are tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving about the amount of force that is necessary in any particular situation”.
