Chicago police respond after documents released

Chicago officials released hundreds of pages of reports late Friday on the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald that contradicts the squad auto video footage that sparked protests across the city. Officer Jason Van Dyke’s statements after the shooting paint Laquan McDonald as an out-of-control assailant who continued to pose a threat, even after being shot.

The Chicago Police Department said the Independent Police Review Authority is conducting the investigation into McDonald’s killing.

Over a week after the Laquan McDonald shooting dashcam video was released, Gov. Bruce Rauner weighed in and said he was so shocked, he cried. He said McDonald “swung the knife toward the officers in an aggressive manner” before Van Dyke shot him and that he believed McDonald was “attempting to kill them”. The statements led police supervisors to rule McDonald’s death a justifiable homicide. On the same day the video was released, Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder.

He also said the department had recently issued a bulletin, warning officers that there are knives that can shoot bullets.

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy was sacked and Escalante has taken over in the interim.

In newly-released police reports, however, several officers, including Van Dyke, described McDonald as aggressively approaching officers while armed with a knife. And in Seattle, nearly all police video is posted online almost immediately, though special software blurs the images; a video with clear images must be requested.

Lawyers for the news organization noted in the motion filed Thursday that recordings from only five police vehicles at the scene have been released, but an examination of those videos shows that a total of eight police vehicles appeared to be at the scene.

Emanuel has said he didn’t see the video until it was released publicly.

– Charleston, South Carolina: In April, a bystander’s cellphone video prompted police in North Charleston, South Carolina, to release a dashcam video of white officer Michael Slager shooting Walter Scott, an unarmed black man. Slager has been charged with murder and is awaiting a trial date. The authority, which did not return a message left Friday, has not released its report on the McDonald shooting.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel told the media Thursday that the city would drop its fight against the release of the video, and make it available sometime next week.

Protesters called on Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to resign for failing to press charges sooner against officer Jason Van Dyke.

Another contradiction that emerged with the release of the reports is whether McDonald’s knife was folded when officers recovered it at the scene.

One report said McDonald showed “irrational behavior”, such as ignoring verbal directions, “growling” and making noises.

All sides need to figure out the best policies “very quickly”, especially because police dashcams and body cameras will become more ubiquitous, says Samuel Walker, a retired criminal justice professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. PCP, a hallucinogenic drug, was found in McDonald’s system, according to Alvarez and the medical examiner’s report that included with the documents.