After the recently released video of a Chicago officer firing 16 bullets into the body of Laquan McDonald, she has hope that the black teenager’s death, and the murder charge against the white officer, the first in decades to be charged with a crime for an on-duty shooting, will prompt someone to take another look at her son’s case. The charges were announced hours before the video’s release and over a year after the shooting. But Emanuel quickly changed course and said he would welcome federal involvement.
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The DOJ announced the investigation earlier this month after the release of video showing a white officer fatally shooting a black teenager in 2014.
Based in part on how such investigations have unfolded in elsewhere cities, Wednesday’s meetings are most likely get-acquainted sessions.
“The Chicago Police Department welcomes the meeting requested by the Department of Justice, and pledges the City’s complete and full cooperation”, the department said in a statement. He described it as an off-the-record talk during which he said the union wanted to “help facilitate… the investigation”.
Among the many questions federal investigators will answer in a final report: Is there racial bias in the use of force by officers?
Prosecutors said Van Dyke fired 16 shots in 14 to 15 seconds, and for all but one of two of those seconds, McDonald was already lying wounded on the pavement on October 20, 2014.
Van Dyke, who was freed on $1.5 million bail November 30 after spending six nights in Cook County Jail, is scheduled to return Friday to the Leighton Criminal Court Building. President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff said Wednesday that the federal investigation, to which he was initially cool, will bring a “fresh set of eyes” on persistent allegations of police misconduct.
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“I am going to meet with them so they know that the city, the mayor’s office…that we welcome them”, Emanuel said of the Justice Department investigators. In this case, Van Dyke was indicted for intentionally shooting and killing McDonald as well as shooting the teen knowing that his acts “created a strong probability of death or great bodily harm”.
