Vol. 81/No. 14 April 10, 2017
New charges filed against Chicago cop who killed youth
The court-ordered release of the police dashcam video of the shooting 14 months after it happened prompted sustained protests demanding justice and condemning both the cops and city administration for the cover-up.
The video clearly showed McDonald walking away from police as Van Dyke shot him, including 14 times after the young man was already on the ground. The video contradicts the accounts of Van Dyke and other cops at the scene, who claimed McDonald lunged at them.
The protests led to the firing of then Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel moved to contain political damage caused by the shooting and the cover-up.
In January, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a scathing report on the Chicago Police Department, following a yearlong investigation begun after the killing of McDonald. “Among the most egregious uses of deadly force,” the report said, “were incidents in which CPD officers shot at suspects who presented no immediate threat.”
Last August the Chicago Tribune released CPD statistics showing that in 435 police shootings from 2010 to 2015 cops killed 92 people and wounded another 170. Some four out of every five persons shot by cops were African-American males.
“People need to be in that courtroom, all the families, and keep the pressure on until the killer of Laquan McDonald is behind bars,” Arewa Karen Winters, a member of Justice for Families, told the Militant March 26. Winters is the great aunt of 16-year-old Pierre Loury, who was shot and killed by cops here last April.
“We need to set a precedent and not just for Chicago,” she said. “Van Dyke should be convicted and sent to jail like the criminal he is. We don’t want to see this happen to other young people.”
Related articles:
200 protest cop killings, brutality in Bakersfield
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