About 200 protesters are demonstrating in downtown Chicago following the release of documents showing that police officers’ accounts of the 2014 killing of a black teen differed greatly from what was captured on dashcam video.
Advertisement
The probe in Chicago would follow growing protests over the death of Laquan McDonald, who was shot in 2014 by Officer Jason Van Dyke.
The officer continued shooting after the teenager fell to the ground and stopped moving. The video does not include sound, which authorities have not explained.
Police fought for months to keep the public from seeing the dashcam video but released it last month facing a court deadline and only hours after Van Dyke was charged with murder.
Early efforts to suppress the release of the footage by the city coincided with Mr Emanuel’s re-election campaign.
While Emanuel has dismissed calls for his resignation, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy did step down from his position. Calls for him to resign – something he’s said he won’t do – have grown louder.
The group chanted “16 shots and a cover-up” and counted to 16, referring to the number of times Van Dyke shot McDonald.
The official, who asked not to be identified because an official announcement hasn’t been made, said lawyers within the department’s Civil Rights Division would examine, in part, whether officers engaged in a pattern of biased policing. In a lawsuit filed against the city in October, three men said they were subjected to “unconstitutionally coercive and torturous tactics” at the CPD’s notorious Homan Square facility on the city’s West Side.
“If the criminal investigation concludes that any officer participated in any wrongdoing, we will take swift action”, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement.
“Any suggestion that politics played a role in this investigation is patently false”, Kelley Quinn, a spokeswoman for Emanuel, said.
The Justice Department in the last six years has opened more than 20 investigations of police departments.
“We welcome the engagement of the Department of Justice as we work to restore trust in our police department and improve our system of police accountability”, Collins said.
Demonstrators confront police officers during a protest in reaction to the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald in Chicago, Illinois, November 27, 2015. One officer said he believed McDonald was attacking the officers and “attempting to kill them” when Van Dyke opened fire.
Lorenzo Davis, a former Chicago police commander and top IPRA investigator, has claimed he was sacked this year for resisting Ando’s orders to justify police shootings.
The “patterns and practices” investigation will determine whether the department systematically violates constitutional rights.
Chicago has a sordid history of police brutality and abuse.
“Chicago is facing a defining moment on the issues of crime and policing and the even larger issues of truth and justice”, Emanuel wrote.
Advertisement
Of 409 shootings involving Chicago police since September 2007, only two have led to allegations against an officer being found credible, the Chicago Tribune reported, citing data from the agency that investigates police cases. His resignation is effective immediately. Fairley is the current General Counsel of Chicago’s Office of the Inspector General and served as an Assistant United States Attorney for eight years. The hundreds of pages described McDonald as a danger to himself and to officers. A Justice Department spokesperson did not confirm that a new probe into Chicago PD is imminent.
