The city released a squad-car video of the McDonald shooting on November 24 but only after a state judge ordered them to.
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Emanuel’s approval ratings have fallen to 35%, the lowest they have ever been, amidst the Justice Department announcing an investigation into the city’s police force on Monday. He also criticized the police department, which is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice, for being quick to shoot, saying the department’s “supervision and leadership”, as well as the oversight agencies, failed.
Emanuel took a different approach this week, noting that too many Chicagoans don’t trust police officers. “And I’m sorry”, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said. Days of protests and marches followed the video’s release, including one that on the busiest shopping day of the year partially shut down the city’s most famous shopping district, Michigan Avenue. “It is in our self-interest, because we need (federal) assistance to make the fundamental and necessary changes”.
Since the McDonald video was released last month, Emanuel has begun overhauling the police department, ousting leaders and calling for the dismantling of an entrenched “code of silence” that might be preventing officers from speaking out when they see other officers behaving badly.
It contributed to Garry McCarthy losing his job as Chicago’s police superintendent and spurred calls for Emanuel to resign.
Before protesters weaved through downtown, retired schoolteacher Audrey Davis held a sign that read, “Mayor Emanuel is morally corrupt!”
She says she doesn’t want to hear anything from him except “I tender my resignation”. The video finally got released before Thanksgiving, a little over two weeks ago.
“We think that when citizens are involved in police actions, and they can question witnesses regarding police shootings, that it will be a better city and a better Chicago“, said Rose Joshua, the president of the NAACP chapter on Chicago’s South Side, the Chicago Tribune reported last week.
In addition to calling for improved community policing, Emanuel insisted the city must find a way to confront “underlying challenges of family, of poverty, of joblessness, or hopelessness”.
The furor grew even more after the city released reports over the weekend in which accounts offered by police on the scene appeared to contradict what the graphic video footage shows.
Protesters were demonstrating against police misconduct and the city’s response at City Hall on Wednesday.
“We were adding to the suspicion and trust”, he said.
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The shooting led to the resignation of Chicago’s police force, and the Mayor appointing a task force aimed at police reform, but protests started again after hearing the officer behind a second shooting won’t face charges in the death of 25 year old Ronald Johnson.
