Among the marchers was 73-year-old Frank Chapman of Chicago, who said the disturbing video confirms what activists have said for years about Chicago police brutality. Many of those people are from out of town; they’re not even from the state of IL, the city of Chicago, and the retail that goes on down there has nothing to do with city government.
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Kalven’s institute worked seven years to open up police files and establish an online database of misconduct complaints against police officers – 97 percent of which resulted in absolutely no disciplinary action.
We share the protesters’ anger. Police arrested Troy Alim, 24; Johnae Strong, 25; and May Page, 26, during the protest and later released them.
But the public’s not buying it. Mostly the concerns are that the choice to hold off revealing the video was more about politics than it was about leaglese or the interest of the investigation. But you have to understand it. Again, effective leadership is knowing how to direct and redirect it. That’s what we need to be focusing on.
On Friday, authorities filed murder charges against a man in the death of a 9-year-old boy who was reportedly lured off a basketball court and shot in the head early this month, in a case that police say centers on gang rivalries. Why was the Laquan McDonald video released prior to the Chicago mayoral election?
The Chicago Tribune reports (http://trib.in/1IhGV0f) parents have received a letter from Chief Education Officer Janice Jackson assuring them the video of McDonald’s death won’t be shown in schools. For additional video content, click the “video” tab at the top of this page.
As of now, Van Dyke is in jail and is being held with no bond for the Chicago teen shooting. Too many times has it witnessed her betrayal and so there is no trust in her effort to pursue justice where Blacks are concerned.
To Kalven, the most important issue here is not just the shooting but how governmental institutions – from the police to the mayor’s office – responded to it, he says. The next day, he has said, a portion of the video was missing.
Emanuel faced backlash from critics for his comment, but Alvarez defended him Tuesday, saying his plea to keep the video away from the public eye, “was in the best interest of the investigation”. Father Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and social activist who has always been an ally of the African-American community, now wants to take the protests to the next level. Van Dyke, who had been on administrative duty since the shooting last October, was charged with murder on Tuesday.
A recording of a New York City police officer placing Eric Garner in an apparent chokehold during a fatal 2014 clash also sparked nationwide protests, but a grand jury declined to indict the officer on a manslaughter charge.
In a previous article, this writer covered not only the dashcam video, but also both the similarities and differences in the accounts of the shootings in Ferguson and Chicago which happened within three months of each other.
The Chicago Police Department has settled a civil suit with McDonald’s family for – reportedly – $5 million.
Laquan McDonald never had a chance to do much of anything.
“This is what they need to do: Clear the air, make it clean”.
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The Chicago lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) posted a bail fund appeal for Officer Jason Van Dyke on its website on Saturday. And even now, she has charged Van Dyke with First degree murder which will be hard to prove. “It was well worth it being able to come back down today and get everything that I needed for the holidays”, said shopper Mike Baker.
