A 21-year-old has been arrested for allegedly making an online threat to kill at least 16 “white devils” to avenge the death of black teenager Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times by police last year.
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Outside the courtroom, Van Dyke’s attorney, Daniel Herbert, told reporters the video appeared damning but said the dashboard camera did not capture the entire event.
After spending the Thanksgiving holiday in jail, Van Dyke was freed on a $1.5 million bail Monday. The unnamed officer was put on paid desk duty while the city opened an investigation into the shooting.
Judge Donald Panarese Jr. played dash cam footage of the shooting before setting bail.
The video stirred protests following its release last Tuesday, shortly after Van Dyke became the first Chicago cop to be charged with murder for an on-duty shooting in more than 30 years.
The mayor of Chicago has forced the city’s top police officer to resign after a video was released of a white officer repeatedly shooting a black teenager as he lay motionless on the ground.
Chicago police initially said that McDonald was high on the hallucinogen PCP, was acting erratically and had lunged at officers with a knife when he was shot dead.
State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said she had decided weeks ago to charge Van Dyke but was holding off until federal authorities completed their part of the joint investigation.
“When you see the video alone it does not seem like a justifiable shooting”, he said, but he added that “we’re not going to try this case in the media”.
Van Dyke had a history of complaints before he gunned down McDonald, and in nearly every case, he was cleared in one way or another.
The silent Chicago video shows McDonald walking down the middle of a four-lane street.
Emanuel praised him for knowing how to run a large police force and said the city needed “a leader with Garry’s depth of experience and a track record for delivering results”. Officer Jason Van Dyke is facing first-degree murder charges, but the protesters have continued to demand new measures for administrative accountability and other concessions from the mayor and police department. The Chicago Sun Times reports that Chicago’s Independent Police Review Authority has investigated almost 400 police shootings since its creation in 2007, and only one of those shootings has been deemed unjustified. The American Civil Liberties Union complained that Newark police were plagued with problems from lax internal oversight to issues of excessive force during arrests. He is due back in court for a status hearing on December 18.
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After the slaying, rumors circulated that the footage contained an 86-minute gap and that police officers were at the Burger King for two hours the night McDonald was shot by Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke. If convicted he faces five years in prison. According to the commentary, Emanuel fought to hide the video by settling a $5 million lawsuit awarded to the McDonald family before they filed a lawsuit against the city. Further examination has also revealed that, although McDonald carried a knife the day he was killed, “the three inch blade recovered from the scene had been folded into the handle”.
