Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy has been asked to resign, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced on Tuesday.
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There had been calls for Mr McCarthy’s resignation leading up to the mayor’s announcement.
Some Cook County and Chicago leaders say they’re not satisfied with McCarthy’s disimissal.
McCarthy’s ouster comes over a year after 17-year-old Laquan McDonald’s death, but just a week after Chicago acquiesced to a judge’s order and released video of the shooting. He was re-elected in April but is now facing skepticism in some of the same neighborhoods over the police treatment of young black people and over how his office handled the McDonald case in the 13 months before video of it became public. Van Dyke was arrested and charged with murder just before the court-ordered release of the video; he’s free after bail was set at $1.5 million and he posted a 0,000 cashier’s bond.
McCarthy was sworn in as top cop in May of 2011. In the dash cam video, the African-American teen is seen walking in the middle of a two-way street, when multiple police cars drive toward him. He appears to veer away from two officers as they emerge from a vehicle, drawing their guns. Van Dyke continues to fire, emptying his ammunition clip into McDonald’s body as it lies motionless on the pavement.
The video shows a group of police officers confronting McDonald as he walks on a street. Officials later said the knife’s three-inch blade was folded into the handle when it was recovered at the scene. “McCarthy’s resignation is not the end but a beginning to rebuilding trust and confidence in the Chicago Police Department”. “That’s the law”, he said.
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”.
But U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said that police and the community need to “build a relationship based on mutual trust and respect”.
“I’m grateful for his service to the city”, he said, adding that the superintendent had modernized the department and delivered results. “It does not address the wall of silence” which kept the questionable circumstances of McDonald’s death under wraps for more than a year.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced today that he will establish a task force focusing on police accountability. At the news conference, Emanuel said he had “formally asked Supt”.
Dean made the threat in retaliation for the fatal shooting of a black teenager by a white Chicago police officer.
Even the Chicago Teachers Union, which rarely sees eye to eye with City Hall, said this time the mayor got it right.
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The BGA’s attorney Matt Topic also represents, in his private practice, the freelance journalist who successfully sued for the release of the shocking video.
