Family members of Laquan McDonald spoke publicly Friday for the first time since video showing the teen’s fatal shooting by a Chicago police officer was released.
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Demonstrators stage a die-in in front of City Hall during a march through downtown on December 10, calling fro the resignation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Two black state representatives have introduced a bill that would allow the mayor to be recalled.
A group of protesters is calling for justice for 17-year-old Laquan McDonald fatally shot by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke 16 times. Squad-car footage was released late last month upon a judge’s order, and protests have taken place nearly daily since.
Attorneys for McDonald’s family said days ago that McDonald’s mother did not want the video made public because she was still grieving.
But the candidate expressed skepticism that a federal Department of Justice investigation into the patterns and practices of the Chicago Police Department would lead to change. Protesters allege a cover-up and have called for the resignation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.
Most black voters in Chicago also disapprove of the embattled mayor by 53 percent, while 56 percent of white voters in the city said they disapprove of his job performance. The police account says that the officers feared that Cedrick had been reaching for a gun, but the object turned out to be a cellphone case.
When asked if Emanuel should step down, as some protesters have demanded, Carson said: “I think that’s a decision for the people here in Chicago”.
Emanuel fought the release of the video, saying he did not want to jeopardize an ongoing investigation.
Pastor Hunter asserted that Mr. McDonald was a victim of overkill for no other reason than because he was black and that across the country are those who face police terror because they, too, have black skin and are impoverished.
Release of police video of the shooting and the filing of a murder charge against Van Dyke on November 24 came more than a year after McDonald’s death, and the delay, which activists blame on Emanuel and the top local prosecutor, has prompted more than two weeks of protests in the nation’s third-largest city.
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This comes after the mayor fired Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and created a task force on police accountability last week. Emanuel apologized this week.
