At a news conference, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lynn McCarthy played dashboard camera video of the shooting for reporters.
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Grainy video footage showed Ronald Johnson III fleeing police.
Among the most notorious cases of wrongdoing, dozens of men, mostly African-American, said they were subjected to torture from a Chicago police squad headed by former commander Jon Burge during the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s, and many spent years in prison.
Johnson was struck by the bullets and fell face down.
After the video was released today, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez announced that no charges would be filed against Hernandez. A slowed-down version of the video shows what appears to be a gun in his hand. “The report, issued in March, found that officers routinely discriminated against blacks by using excessive force, issuing petty citations and making baseless traffic stops”. Johnson had been an occupant in a auto that had its windshield shot at on on October 12, 2014.
McCarthy and Alvarez said that officers reported that Johnson had a gun. The recovered weapon was linked to a prior shooting in Chicago, where no one had been arrested and no weapon had been recovered, the state’s attorney’s office added.
Johnson’s family does not believe the official account, and his mother has accused the city of a cover-up.
The video’s release and the city’s handling of the case prompted nearly two weeks of protests in Chicago last month.
They continue to insist that Johnson was not armed. It was after midnight, he noted, dismissing the notion that anyone would be in the park.
Digital images of Johnson’s hand show he was holding something, though it is unclear what, Alvarez said.
“All three of them – the police, City Hall and the prosecutor’s office – are suspect”, Jackson said.
“When it comes to IPRA and the decisions, we need a body that not only can make those decisions (and) do it in a way that when they make a decision, that even when the public disagrees with it, they don’t question the integrity of the work that IPRA is doing”. The two met last month when Chicago police released the video of the police shooting of McDonald. Oppenheimer then filed a Freedom of Information Act request, arguing that the footage was public record.
Hernandez was the only officer at the scene to fire his weapon. Coleman clashed violently with police officers at the hospital where he was taken for treatment, trying to seize an officer’s Taser, it said.
Emanuel says the death of Johnson can’t be taken lightly.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he didn’t consider the case closed.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Sharon Fairley as the new head of the Independent Police Review Authority following the resignation of Scott Ando Sunday evening. Johnson was killed just eight days before McDonald under somewhat similar circumstances.
On the night he was killed, Johnson was in a auto with friends when the vehicle’s back window was shot out by an unidentified gunman.
Van Dyke alleged that McDonald was “swinging the knife in an aggressive, exaggerated manner” and raising the weapon above his shoulder, according to the reports.
The legislation, introduced by Chicago Democrat Rep. Arthur Turner, would require police agencies that want to deny release of a video under the Freedom of Information Act to prove their case in court. Van Dyke has been charged with first-degree murder. Protesters chanted, “16 shots and a coverup!”
The dash cam video did not have sound.
After years of questionable practices and confirmed acts of violence against Chicagoans, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday it would open an independent investigation into the Chicago Police Department to see whether it has violated the constitutional and civil rights of the city’s residents.
The Justice Department, which has initiated several such investigations, including in Baltimore and elsewhere, is reviewing the letter.
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In that context, the environment is much more skeptical of police claims.
