Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder November 24, more than a year after the killing and just hours before the release of police dashboard camera footage showing the officer shooting the teenager.
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The attorney representing Johnson’s family countered Alvarez’s video presentation with one of his own later Monday – including parts of video and audio of a deposition that he took from Hernandez a month ago.
The US Department of Justice will investigate the Chicago Police Department over its handling of the police shooting of a black teenager, following widespread protests.
Holmes filed a federal lawsuit against Chicago police shortly after her son’s death, and the defendants filed a motion to block the video’s release.
After Alvarez and McCarthy gave their account, in a separate press conference attorney Michael Oppenheimer accused them of presenting an “infomercial” full of information, but none that conclusively demonstrated that Hernandez was justified in shooting Johnson. To show how such events can quickly turn tragic for police, Alvarez also played a video of an unrelated shooting in which a fleeing suspect had shot and wounded an officer giving chase.
But IPRA can only make recommendations for officer discipline, with the final determination made by the police superintendent of the police board. And though the initial accounts from authorities suggested that McDonald was approaching officers, the video showed him appearing to veer away before he was shot.
She said federal officials would be investigating “constitutional violations” in one of the nation’s largest police departments.
Like to McDonald’s shooting video, the footage of Johnson’s death had no audio.Alvarez called this “a problem for the Chicago police department”.
“We’re in different times right now when we’re talking about transparency and what the public wants to see”, Alvarez said after showing the video.
The video was held from the public for more than a year because releasing it risked prejudicing a federal and state’s attorney investigation, Emanuel explained amid the backlash. The city’s early efforts to suppress its release coincided with Emanuel’s re-election campaign, when the mayor was seeking African-American votes in a tight race.
“This is what our Chicago police brethren deserve and what the City of Chicago citizens demand”, Fairley said. Protesters have also called for Emanuel to resign, but he said he will not step down.
In Miami, for example, the Justice Department policing probe started on November 17, 2011, and investigative findings were released on July 9, 2013.
The Washington Post first reported Sunday that the Justice Department would open this investigation, putting Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s force under the microscope of his former colleagues in the Obama administration. Activists have railed against the police department and the long lag between McDonald’s shooting and the announcement last month that the officer involved would be charged. “We can not trust them”. The inquiry would not target officers, but rather look at systemic issues inside the police department.
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Recent deaths of black men at the hands of mostly white police officers have led to an outcry in the U.S. and prompted a debate about the use of excessive police force. And 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 Independent Police Review Authority.
