A senior member of the Chicago Police Department who served as interim superintendent during the upheaval over the fatal police shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald is leaving to become police chief at Northeastern Illinois University.
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The officers violated Rule 14, which prohibits “making a false report, written or oral”, said Johnson.
Spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the department was reviewing the report and will respond, but didn’t know how long the process would take.
The release a year ago of official police reports that directly contradicted video evidence of McDonald’s shooting by a white police officer turned a spotlight on longstanding concerns about a “code of silence” in Chicago’s police force, in which officers stay quiet about or hide possible misconduct by colleagues. The video, which showed Van Dyke shooting McDonald repeatedly for several seconds after he already lay almost motionless on the ground, inspired heated protests fueled by long-standing discontent among African-Americans about police conduct.
Any disciplinary action Johnson might take against the officers would have to be approved by the Chicago Police Board. “He gets the crisis that we are in and how to solve it”, said Jedidiah Brown, a leader of a group called Chicago Life, which has participated in protests against the police.
In the video, McDonald did not appear to be moving an a way that posed a threat to Van Dyke or other officers, or support accounts by officers that the teenager lunged at them.
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. McDonald was armed with a knife.
Officer Jason Van Dyke is charged with first-degree murder in the 2014 shooting death of McDonald. The video seemed to belie those accounts. Prosecutors say the 3-inch blade was found folded into the handle.
Also Tuesday, a police spokesman confirmed the city’s inspector general has delivered a report on that shooting, but didn’t provide details on any conclusions or recommendations.
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“With respect to the tenth officer, CPD respectfully disagrees with the OIG’s recommendation for separation and feels that there is insufficient evidence to prove those respective allegations”.
