A special prosecutor announced on Monday that there was enough evidence to convene a grand jury to investigate a potential cover-up by the Chicago Police after the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald. At the time, Holmes told reporters this was “a grave responsibility” and that she wasn’t sure she would request a grand jury. She was appointed in July by Judge LeRoy Martin Jr., who oversees the Cook County criminal courts.
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An investigation by the city’s inspector general concluded that officers filed false police reports in the case. “In a decision that’s this weighty and important, I think the public would want to have some oversight”, she said. By law, it must meet at least once a month, but its deliberations would be secret. The exact number of police personnel being investigated Holmes would not disclose and said there is “no rush to judgment”.
“You present one thing and then the grand jury gets to say, ‘Hey wait a minute, what about this?” She did this so that “people would know there was fairness” in the process, she told Reuters. But Van Dyke, who was charged with first-degree murder late a year ago, and several officers at the scene offered statements that McDonald ignored repeated calls from Van Dyke to drop the knife and had put the officers in danger. Van Dyke’s prosecution is also being handled by a special prosecutor, Kane County State’s Attorney Joseph McMahon. State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez opposed a special prosecutor during her hard-fought re-election effort earlier this year, but after her primary loss, she withdrew her opposition. Van Dyke wasn’t one of them, but he is facing a first-degree murder charge.
Holmes is looking into whether Van Dyke’s fellow officers lied in their accounts of the shooting, and the investigation could also ensnare police supervisors, The Tribune reported. Holmes declined to say how many officers could face charges.
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Before the release of the footage, Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, who had sought to block its release, said he had not yet seen it. The released video disproved this.
