Hundreds of pages of newly released Chicago police reports from the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald are most striking for one simple reason: They are dramatically at odds with the dashboard-camera video that has sparked protests across the city, cost Chicago’s top cop his job and embroiled Mayor Rahm Emanuel in scandal.
Advertisement
The reports, a collection of handwritten statements from the night of the shooting, and follow-up reports in the days and months after, often refer to Van Dyke as VD and call him the victim.
The court-ordered release of a police dashcam video contrasts sharply with the initial press release sent out by police hours after McDonald was shot to death. That video, which prompted the city to pay McDonald’s family $5 million without their filing a wrongful death lawsuit, shows McDonald briskly walking down the middle of the street when Van Dyke fired from the teenager’s left side.
To say the video doesn’t match with the rendition of events as written in police reports by officers at the scene would be a gross understatement.
Van Dyke’s partner, Joseph Walsh, said in the report that McDonald got within 12 to 15 feet of his partner and swung the knife before he was shot. O fell to the ground, continued to move/grasp the knife …
As McDonald lays in the street, barely moving, Van Dyke continues firing his Smith Wesson semi-automatic pistol at McDonald.
According to Van Dyke’s account, he repeatedly ordered McDonald to drop the knife.
Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the city’s Independent Police Review Authority, not the police department, conducts investigations of officer-involved shootings, and the agency was given all evidence from the scene.
An autopsy report by the Cook County medical examiner would later determine that the “well developed, well nourished black male” was shot 16 times. He also said the department had recently issued a bulletin, warning officers that there are knives that can shoot bullets. Because they diverge so dramatically from the video of the shooting, they suggest one possible avenue for additional investigation. Officer Van Dyke is seen firing his weapon within seconds of emerging from his patrol vehicle. Amid an outcry after the city waited more than a year to release dash-cam footage of Officer Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced this week that he was setting up a special task force to examine, among other things, the citys video-release policy.
Records show that a federal grand jury subpoenaed the Chicago Police Department for these same reports on August 28.
“You’ve got police reports that say the guy lunged and a video that says that didn’t happen at all”, Turner said. But, in another contradiction, one of the police reports said the recovered knifes blade was in the open position.One of the reports noted what it called McDonalds irrational behavior, such as ignoring verbal directions, growling and making noises. The teen was being chased by police after reports he was burglarizing cars and slashing tires. In particular, the sources said, federal prosecutors are investigating the officers who made statements as well as the officers who prepared the reports of the statements.
Advertisement
The police reports are blacked out in places, with those redactions covering signatures, a reporter’s cell phone number, the serial number of the officer’s gun and McDonald’s address.
