White Cop Who Shot Black Chicago Teen 16 TIMES Charged With Murder

 

Above Photo: From PopularResistance.org.

• Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke, 37, shot Laquan McDonald 16 times on October 20, 2014
• He ‘kept firing even when suspect was on ground and in a fetal position’
• McDonald, 17, was struck in head, shoulders, chest, arms, legs, and back
• Today, Van Dyke, 37, turned himself in and was charged with first-degree murder, becoming the first on-duty Chicago cop in 35 years to face that count
• If convicted, he would face minimum of 20 years in prison, it is reported
• Mayor Rahm Emanuel deemed the shooting a ‘hideous’ attack that had ‘no justification’ but asked for peaceful protests as the video is released 
• Judge ruled dashcam video of the shooting must be made public

 

A white Chicago police officer who fatally shot an African-American teenager 16 times was charged this morning with first-degree murder and ordered to remain in jail. 

 

Officer Jason Van Dyke, 37, gunned down 17-year-old Laquan McDonald – who was armed with a 3-inch knife – within six seconds of getting out of his cop car on October 20 last year.

 

He was on the scene for just 30 seconds before he started shooting. He continued firing even though McDonald dropped to the ground after the first shots.

 

Cook County’s top prosecutor provided those details Tuesday after announcing the murder charge against Van Dyke. 

 

 

 

McDonald was struck in the head, chest, lower abdomen, arms, legs and back while he lay in an ‘almost fetal position’ on the ground.

 

Now, city officials including mayor Rahm Emanuel have made a public plea for peaceful protests as the video is set to be released to the public.  

 

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Assistant State’s Attorney Bill Delaney said Van Dyke emptied his 9 mm pistol, shooting the teen 16 times from just 10 feet away. He said the shooting lasted 14-15 seconds and that McDonald was on the ground for 13 seconds. 

 

 

 

At around 7.30pm local time, the veteran officer – who has been on paid desk duty since the deadly shooting in the city’s Archer Heights neighborhood – turned himself in at the Cook County courthouse to face a murder charge in the case. 

 

At a bond hearing held at noon, a judge ordered Van Dyke to remain in custody.

 

Van Dyke is the first Chicago police officer to be charged with murder in connection to an on-duty fatality in 35 years, according to reports.

 

It comes a day before dashboard camera footage of the shooting is set to be finally released by Chicago Police Department after a judge ruled that the force must make it public by tomorrow.

 

State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said of the video: ‘it is graphic, it is violent, it is chilling.’ She added that it will ‘tear at the hearts’ of Chicagoans. But she appealed for calm, saying she wants young people to know that authorities are listening to their concerns about policing and justice.

 

During a press conference following Van Dyke’s indictment, Alvarez defended the amount of time it took to charge the cop.

 

 

 

 

Alvarez told reporters cases involving police officers present ‘highly complex’ legal issues and she would rather take the time to get it right than ‘rush to judgment.’

 

She said the impending release of the video, ordered by a judge, prompted her to move up the announcement of the charge out of concern that the video would spark violence. But she insisted that she made a decision ‘weeks ago privately’ to charge the officer and the video’s release did not influence that. 

 

 

 

Protesters have been pushing for the footage – which allegedly shows McDonald being shot in the back by Van Dyke, who then keeps firing – to be released by authorities for 13 months.

 

However, it is still yet to emerge. A judge finally ruled last week that the video must be released following a lawsuit from a freelance journalist, who had sued under Illinois’s open records law. 

 

Several people who have seen the footage say it shows McDonald armed with a small knife and walking away from several officers. Officials claim the teenager was also acting erratically.

 

 

 

 

Police have said McDonald had threatened them with a knife and slashed at the tires and windshield of a patrol car.

 

Within seconds of climbing out of his police car, Van Dyke can allegedly be seen opening fire at McDonald, striking him in the head, chest, torso, arms, legs, hands, and at least twice in the back. 

 

None of the other responding officers at the scene fired any rounds, officials told WGN-TV.

 

Autopsy reports later showed that McDonald had been shot a whopping 16 times, it is reported.

 

They also revealed that PCP, a hallucinogenic drug, was in the teenager’s system at the time.

 

 

 

 

 

An attorney for Van Dyke did not respond to messages from the AP seeking comment. However, he said last week that the officer had feared for his life and acted lawfully on the night of the incident.

 

If convicted of first-degree murder, Van Dyke would face a minimum of 20 years in prison.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night, Mayor Rahm Emanuel deemed the shooting a ‘hideous’ attack that had ‘no justification’, and said Van Dyke had taken ‘the law into his own hands’, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

 

‘He didn’t build the trust we want to see. And he wasn’t about providing safety and security,’ said Emanuel, who has apparently not watched the dashcam footage due for imminent release.

 

McDonald’s family has already received a $5million civil settlement from Chicago over the incident.

 

This settlement was reportedly made even before the family filed a lawsuit.

 

Also yesterday, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy recommended the firing of another police officer who shot and killed a 22-year-old unarmed black woman in the city in 2012.

 

A board that reviews allegations of misconduct by Chicago police recommended in September that Officer Dante Servin be fired for the shooting of Rekia Boyd, who was struck by five bullets.

 

McCarthy said in a statement that he agreed with the assessment, saying Servin showed ‘incredibly poor judgment’ when he fired at Boyd five times, leading one bullet to fatally pierce her head. 

 

 

 

Servin said he fired because he felt threatened when he confronted a group at a park. And during a trial that ended in April, a judge found him not guilty of involuntary manslaughter and other charges.

 

In the McDonald case, ministers, community leaders and others worry the graphic images of the shooting from the squad car dash-board camera could lead to the kind of unrest seen in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, following police-involved deaths, including that of Michael Brown.  

 

‘I’m definitely concerned about people’s outrage,’ said the Rev. Corey Brooks of the New Beginnings Church on Chicago’s south side.

 

‘Many in my community feel betrayed, they are so very angry and protests are imminent. It’s clear from the meeting today that Emanuel knows that,’ said the Rev. Ira Acree of the Greater St. John Bible Church on the west side. 

 

Mayor Emanuel called together community leaders yesterday to appeal for help in keeping the city calm.

 

‘People have a right and should exercise their First Amendment rights,” he told reporters, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. ‘Do it in a focused way, a responsible way so your voices and ideas are heard.’ 

 

 

 

 

The fears of unrest stem from longstanding tensions between Chicago police and minority groups, partly due to the department’s dogged reputation for brutality, particularly involving blacks.

 

Dozens of men, mostly African American, said they were subjected to torture at the hands of a Chicago police squad headed by ex-commander Jon Burge during the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s.

 

Many of these spent years in prison. 

 

Burge was eventually convicted of lying about the torture and served four and a half years in prison. 

 

 

 

 

Some attendees of the community meeting said afterward that city officials waited too long after McDonald was shot to get them involved. 

 

‘You had this tape for a year and you are only talking to us now because you need our help keeping things calm,’ one of the ministers, Corey Brooks, said after the meeting.

 

The judge ordered the Police Department to release the footage after the city had refused to do so for months, saying the investigations into the shooting were not complete. 

 

Chicago’s police union opposes release of the video, which will be evidence if Van Dyke is charged.

 

‘It’ll be out there and people will see it dozens and dozens and dozens of times. Then you have to go to that same population and select a jury pool,’ said Dean Angelo, president of the Chicago lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police. 

 

Both the FBI and Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office had been looking into the incident.

 

 

Ira Acree, who described the meeting with Emanuel as ‘very tense, very contentious,’ said the mayor expressed concerns about the prospect of any demonstrations getting out of control.

 

Another minister who attended, Jedidiah Brown, said emotions were running so high that there would be no stopping major protests once the video is released.

 

Earlier yesterday, Emanuel’s office characterized the discussion as something ‘we regularly do on important topics.’ 

 

But Acree and another minister, Marshall Hatch, said it is a rare occurrence.

 

‘This has the feeling of them scrambling,’ Hatch said.

 

The two ministers said African Americans in the city are upset because the officer, though stripped of his police powers, has been assigned to desk duty and not fired.

 

‘They had the opportunity to be a good example and a model across the country on how to improve police and community relations and they missed it,’ Acree said.

 

The Police Department said placing an officer on desk duty after a shooting is standard procedure and that it is prohibited from doing anything more during the investigations.

 

Van Dyke has apparently worked as an officer with the force since 2001.