Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson is seeking to fire seven officers for allegedly falsifying information in the Laquan McDonald shooting, CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Thursday.
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Johnson’s recommendation will go to the city’s Police Board for a final decision. Escalante applied for the job on a permanent basis, but it was given to another high-ranking member of the department, Eddie Johnson.
The city’s inspector general had recommended the firing of 10 officers, but two of them have since retired and Johnson disagreed with the recommendation to fire a third, saying “there is insufficient evidence to prove those respective allegations”.
The controversy stirred by the video of Van Dyke shooting McDonald was compounded by the fact that numerous officers at the scene wrote reports that conflicted with the video, suggesting a collaborative effort to justify the shooting.
Rachel Leven, a spokeswoman for the Inspector General’s office, said its policy on sustained investigations of wrongdoing is to release summaries in the office’s quarterly report – the next of which is due to be released in October. Van Dyke was charged with McDonald’s murder in November of 2015, yet there are still countless stories of officers shooting down citizens around the country and facing no charges at all. His lawyer says Van Dyke acted properly and resorted to deadly force because he feared for his life.
Johnson’s statement didn’t make any reference to McNaughton’s role in the McDonald shooting or if his retirement is linked to those events. In a news release Tuesday, the school said Escalante will assume the post September 7. McCarthy’s dismissal came shortly after the release of the McDonald video.
Northeastern Illinois University President Sharon Hahs said in a statement that Escalante “has a national reputation in the field of law enforcement for his experience, integrity and leadership”. Those seven officers were relieved of their police powers as the department waits for the board’s decision. But he did not know how long the process would take.
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Johnson’s announcement comes days after the police department received the inspector general’s report.
