The University of Chicago was forced to cancel all classes Monday after a black student at a nearby school threatened to kill 16 white male students or staff in retaliation for Van Dyke’s shooting McDonald that many times.
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Since then protesters have taken to the streets, and many – including the editorial board of the Chicago Sun-Times – have called on Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to quit or for Emanuel to fire him.
Emanuel fired the city’s police superintendent Tuesday, a week after the release of a dash-cam video that showed a white Chicago officer fatally shooting a black teenager 16 times.
The impact of the release of the Laquan McDonald video continues to build. Today Mayor Emanuel announced the resignation of Chicago Police Supt. “Given what we are working on, he has become an issue rather than dealing with the issue”, Emanuel said.
Emanuel hired him as police chief after his first choice for the job, former Chicago Deputy Superintendent Charles Ramsey, asked for a salary of over $400,000.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel attempted to ease tension in the city this week by creating a task force he hopes will help fix the damaged relationship between police officers and the communities they serve. The council approved a $5 million settlement with McDonald’s family in April, eight days after Emanuel won a second term.
Andrea Zopp, a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, said the healing within the black community could now begin with McCarthy’s exit.
“Those are all, I would tell you, the goal; it is not just the culture of the police department, yes, and doing changes are not enough, but they’re part of changing that culture”.
A freelance journalist filed suit, arguing that the video was public record. The mayor had previously scheduled the press conference to announce the creation of a task force on police accountability.
Protests followed the charging and arrest of Van Dyke and the release of the video on November 24. In statements released later, police claimed McDonald “refused to comply with orders to drop the knife and continued to approach the officers”, according to news reports. He was placed on administrative duty after the shooting, still receiving a salary from the police department until he was charged with murder.
Police superintendents serve at a mayor’s pleasure.
On Tuesday afternoon, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said she had written a letter to US Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking the federal Justice Department to conduct a civil rights investigation into the Police Department’s use of “deadly force; the adequacy of its review and investigation of officers’ use of force and investigation of allegations of misconduct”.
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But as an op-ed published last night in the New York Times argues, Emanuel and the city’s top prosecutor Anita Alvarez went to great lengths to suppress the release of the dashcam video.
