A protester holds ups a sign calling for the resignation of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel during a protest march calling for the mayor and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to resign Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, in Chicago.
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“This is a joke”, attorney Michael Oppenheimer told reporters about an hour after Alvarez laid out her reasons for not charging Officer George Hernandez.
“I own it”, he said, at time appearing emotional. Emanuel tried to assuage the protesters a week later, asking Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to step down, then doing the same to the head of the Independent Police Review Authority this past Sunday.
Dashcam footage of the October 20, 2014, shooting had been withheld from the public for more than a year.
Several community members in court said they came to support Evans because he “cleaned up” the neighborhood, which some have described as having once been a shooting gallery for gangs.
Its database does not indicate specific dates for numerous complaints. First, appoint an independent special prosecutor to insure a fair prosecution.
Can the mayor rebound, restore a measure of public confidence and effectively address the institutional conditions that enable and shield police misconduct?
Beale represents a large portion of Chicago’s South Side.
“I’m not covering anything up”.
“We have some serious questions if there’s ever going to be any trust again”, said the Rev. Ira Acree of Greater St. John Bible Church, according to WLS-TV.
This time, however, Obama finds himself confronting a different scenario.
It is critical that the Justice Department now examine not only the police force, where a culture of impunity and a code of silence are deeply ingrained, but also Chicago’s entire system. “What I mean by that, it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before”. “Look, I’m not going to always get it right”.
Oppenheimer, however, continued to maintain that Alvarez was participating in a cover-up by law enforcement that began at the scene the night of the shooting. But what does it mean to “fight hard”, when you get it devastatingly wrong or fail to deliver on grand promises-on schools, on taxes, on police?
(His) new take is that he wants transparency, he wants change. “It is in our self-interest, because we need (federal) assistance to make the fundamental and necessary changes”. “This is a cover-up from the beginning”, he said. The tape shows us who did the shooting. “If they don’t give us what we want, we’re gonna give them hell”. “They’re grainy, it’s dark, it’s blurry, it happens so fast”. Coleman is hit and choked by officers and also tasered while on the ground. The weapon was loaded with 12 rounds.
Emanuel said he didn’t see how the treatment “could possibly be acceptable”. “How can you not say something?” she said.
Van Dyke told an investigator that McDonald was “swinging the knife in an aggressive, exaggerated manner” and that McDonald “raised the knife across chest” and pointed it at Van Dyke, according to one police report. That triggered accusations of a police cover-up.
The contrast with last summer’s Cincinnati case could not be more stark.
Van Dyke is accused of shooting McDonald 16 times, but it took a year for the video to be released.
Emanuel’s address comes days after his top cop stepped down, two more controversial videos were made public and a Department of Justice Investigation was announced.
The Emanuel administration also established a reparations program earlier this year to benefit victims of torture under former Chicago police commander Jon Burge. The autopsy showed that McDonald was shot twice in the back and nine bullet wounds had a downward trajectory. Officials say he died later at a hospital after a reaction to an anti-psychotic drug.
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“There was nothing in his hand, not a gun, a cell phone, a bottle of water – nothing”, he said. The family has asked the city to release the video since litigation started.
