Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez announced no charges will be filed against a Chicago police officer who fatally shot a Black man past year.
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The DOJ has undertaken similar reviews in other cities shaken by police shootings, including Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo., with the aim of determining if there are larger systemic issues within police departments beyond single, high-profile incidents of misconduct.
The Justice Department had in the last six years opened more than 20 investigations into police departments. “Our goal in this investigation…is not to focus on individuals but to improve systems”, Lynch said.
“Nothing is more important to me than the safety and well-being of our residents and ensuring that the men and women of our Police Department have the tools, resources and training they need to be effective crime fighters, stay safe, and build community trust”, said Emanuel in a statement on Monday. Suspicions of hostile treatment by the public, she said, have fueled unrest in a number of cities. Those differences and the long delay between the October 2014 shooting and the November 2015 charges against Officer Jason Van Dyke – paired with data showing widespread issues with how Chicago handles citizen complaints against police – have raised questions about the mechanisms of accountability.
Emanuel said he had not received a “sufficient answer” about how the officers treated Coleman, “and as a result I do not consider this case to be closed or the investigation into what happened that night to be over”.
The video of that shooting will be released yesterday, according to the local ABC affiliate, citing Johnson’s family. The grainy video, which has no audio, showed Hernandez firing at Johnson as he ran into a park. Johnson is not on screen when he was struck by two bullets.
Assistant state’s attorney Lynn McCarthy showed an image enhanced by an Federal Bureau of Investigation computer forensics laboratory, which she said showed that Johnson was carrying a gun in his right hand when he was shot by Hernandez.
Alvarez said Johnson was spotted by police officers near the scene and the officers ordered him to stop and drop his weapon.
Video from the McDonald shooting in October 2014 shows the 17-year-old, who was armed with a knife and allegedly had PCP in his system, approach police cars in the street before veering away from officers who have their guns trained on him. He continues shooting even after McDonald crumples to the ground.
Although the video releases in the Johnson and McDonald shootings had been widely anticipated here, Coleman’s case had played out with less media attention. The city’s early efforts to suppress the footage coincided with Emanuel’s re-election campaign, when the mayor was seeking African-American votes in a tight race.
Emanuel said he will implement recommendations from the federal probe and act on reforms outlined by his new police accountability task force, which was announced last week.
In a second week of protests at City Hall, groups of demonstrators continued their call for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to step down.
A Justice Department probe of the Chicago Police Department will find the force overseen by a nominally independent agency that was set up eight years ago to investigate police brutality, but which has been criticized as an overburdened and toothless watchdog.
Emanuel introduced Sharon Fairley as the new chief of the Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates police-involved shootings. “Based upon an objective review of the evidence and the law, we have determined that the prosecution could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the actions of Officer Hernandez were not reasonable and permissible under the laws of the state of Illinois”, Alvarez said.
Justice Department investigations typically look for systematic violations of federal law. The federal government has the option of suing a police department that is unwilling to make changes.
The trial of a Chicago police commander accused of shoving a gun into a suspect’s throat is set to begin.
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Attorney Michael Oppenheimer, who represents Johnson’s mother, Dorothy Holmes, dismissed Alvarez’s presentation as an “infomercial”, said a witness was coerced into false testimony and said the investigation Alvarez relied on was incomplete and didn’t include comments from key witnesses – including Hernandez himself.
