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Advocates say Chicago police crisis training has languished

The police department has been under scrutiny since a dashcam video was released last month showing a white officer shooting a black 17-year-old 16 times.

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Lawyers for Jones’ family said they have not yet filed a lawsuit and are still collecting information on the incident, although the incident was “clearly a wrongful death situation”.


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Antonio LeGrier also sued on grounds of false arrest.


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The lawsuit seeks more than $100,000 for the two claims. The police had been called, and his father Antonio LeGrier told their downstairs neighbor Bettie Jones to not open the door until the police showed up.

LeGrier had reportedly been holding a baseball bat and was aggressively banging it against a door.

However, attorney Larry Rogers Jr., representing Jones’ family, said at a prayer vigil on Sunday that there may be a video from a house under construction across the street, and that police footage may exist. She was “accidentally struck and tragically killed” by an officer.

She said the mayor would return on Tuesday instead of Saturday.

Emanuel, under fire for a series of fatal police shootings, directed the Chicago Police Department and the leaders of the Independent Police Review Authority to meet immediately to “determine the deficiencies in the current training, and determine what steps can be taken immediately to address them”.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday announced two “significant” measures of reform he hopes will further drive change within the department. There’s a crisis in the city….

Emanuel was already under pressure because of the shooting of Laquan McDonald. The officer is now charged with first-degree murder.

A freelance journalist sued to have the video released.

Emanuel left on Friday, Dec. 18, and when I talked to City Hall for a column last week about new tourism rules since the U.S.-Cuba thaw, the deliberate impression left from the artfully worded explanation was that it was a 10-day trip.

Twelve minutes passed before officers assigned to the call on Erie pushed the talk button on their radios.

Van Dyke, who is no longer being paid, has been free since posting bond.

According to a Washington Post analysis, more than a quarter of police shootings in the United States this year have involved victims with signs of mental illness. Specifically, they asked why police didn’t use nonlethal force, such as stun guns.

Janet Cooksey, center, the mother of Quintonio LeGrier, is comforted by family and friends during a news conference to speak out about Saturday’s shooting death of her son by the Chicago police, on Sunday, Dec. 27, 2015, in Chicago. That meant he was turning away, she said.

“Stop disparaging his character”, she pleaded Sunday. “The police are supposed to serve and protect us”.

Cook County attorneys were not available for comment after the arraignment.

The decision comes after activists stepped up calls for Emanuel’s resignation over his handling of policing in the nation’s third-largest city. “Why didn’t they deploy a Taser?” How many officers responded? What was the urgency?

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The latest shootings in Chicago have raised questions about police training for handling distraught or mentally ill people and the mayor has called for improved response in such cases. “It is in our self-interest, because we need (federal) assistance to make the fundamental and necessary changes”.

Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke is charged with murder