Prosecutors had chose to charge Van Dyke because he wasn’t facing an immediate threat from McDonald, and because he continued to fire at the teen as he lay on the ground after being shot.
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The Chicago Police Department is pursuing the firing of seven officers for giving false information related to the 2014 fatal police shooting of Laquan McDonald, one of several young black men whose death has fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.
The superintendent’s announcement comes after the city’s Inspector General Joseph Ferguson delivered a report on the shooting, recommending the termination of eight officers, according to Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman. Johnson’s recommendation will go to the city’s Police Board for a final decision.
Van Dyke, the only officer who fired his gun that night, has been charged with murder and is awaiting trial.
The police reports on the shooting conflicted with video footage of the incident, sparking accusations that Van Dyke’s fellow officers were trying to cover up an unjustified shooting.
A ninth officer, a woman, was not recommended for firing by Johnson although an Inspector General report found she should be fired as well, according to the Sun-Times. “The nine members of the board are private citizens appointed by the mayor with the advice and consent of the City Council”.
The officers have been stripped of their police powers.
The move to punish the officers is a long-awaited reaction to a shooting that has hung over city politics and driven broad changes in the Police Department and its oversight. As investigations into the incident continued, a judge took the rare step of appointing a special prosecutor to examine the actions of officers who were at the scene. The process typically takes about seven months, so any decision to fire the officers isn’t likely until next year.
Superintendent Eddie Johnson called for their removal after a report concluded the officers made false statements. At least one officer said McDonald advanced on officers in a menacing way and swung his knife at them in an “aggressive, exaggerated manner”.
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As for the tenth office, the department said it “respectfully disagrees with the OIG’s recommendation for separation and feels that there is insufficient ecidence to prove those respective allegations”.
