One handwritten report, referring to Van Dyke by his initials and McDonald as the offender, said: “VD believed O [offender] was attacking with knife… trying to kill VD…”
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The release of 2014 dashboard-mounted video showing McDonald being shot 16 times by police was the match that set off the powder keg, revitalizing allegations of negligence and what some are calling a systemic problem of excessive police force.
The protesters said they won’t stop marching until there is more change at City Hall.
Chicago officials released hundreds of pages of reports late Friday on the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald that contradicts the squad vehicle video footage that sparked protests across the city.
The city of Chicago will release the dash cam video, which shows another deadly officer-involved shooting past year.
In the video of the October 20, 2014 incident – in which McDonald was shot 16 times – the 17-year-old is not moving aggressively toward the officers.
At least five other officers also said McDonald moved toward them in a threatening way, but no one else fired their guns. Van Dyke has been locked up since November 24, when prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder in the shooting death of black teenager Laquan McDonald.
“Over the past week, the city of Chicago has once again been confronted with significant questions about the use of excessive force and accountability of the Chicago Police Department”, she wrote.
There’s often little consistency in US cities’ policies on how quickly to release videos of police officers shooting civilians under disputed circumstances, with many municipalities making decisions as they go or waiting to act until political pressure or court rulings force the issue.
“Superintendent Garry McCarthy has been an excellent leader of our police department over the last four-and-a-half years”.
Messages left for police, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office and the state’s attorney weren’t immediately returned late Friday.
“If the criminal investigation concludes that any officer participated in any wrongdoing, we will take swift action”, Guglielmi said in an emailed statement. The teen was being chased by police after reports he was burglarizing cars and slashing tires.
Walsh said McDonald attempted to get up after falling, “while still armed with the knife”. He said he eventually kicked the knife away from McDonald and then told the dying teenager “Hang in there” as an ambulance was called. But one of the police reports said the recovered knife’s “blade was in the open position”. PCP, a hallucinogenic drug, was found in McDonald’s system, according to Alvarez and the medical examiner’s report that included with the documents. If a microphone picked up the sound of shots, he said, you’d expect it to also capture the voices of officers shouting at McDonald or each other.
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Johnson’s mother, Dorothy Holmes, says the dashcam footage of the shooting proves her son was slain, and is pushing for the video’s release to the public.
