Justice Department To Investigate Chicago Police Practices

Scott Ando was in charge of IPRA for four years.

City Hall has also promised to release further police videos, such as one that reportedly captured Chicago Police Officer George Hernandez shooting 25-year-old Ronald Johnson III in the back as he ran from police.

The Justice Department was already investigating McDonald’s death, but a pattern-and-practices investigation would entail a systemic examination of the department and could result in a court-enforced reform settlement agreement.

News of a sweeping new justice department investigation came on Sunday afternoon as 200 protesters, politicians and clergy marched throughout downtown Chicago, part of continuing efforts to force change to the city’s policing.

In a statement, Anthony Guglielmi of Chicago Police News Affairs wrote “We will let the Department of Justice address what action they will or will not choose to take, but as was made clear last week, we welcome the engagement of the Department of Justice as we work to restore trust in our police department and improve our system of police accountability”.

While officials couldn’t speak to the more broad investigation that is expected to be announced soon, Chicago police officials told the Guardian that the federal investigation into the shooting of Laquan McDonald remains on-going.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel initially rejected the civil rights case, pointing to investigation by a special task force and the U.S. Attorney in Chicago.

The federal probe could be announced early this week, although neither the Chicago Police Department nor the Justice Department would confirm it on Sunday.

The shooting and the filing of murder charges led to calls from Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan for a Justice Department civil rights investigation. Dashcam video of that shooting was recently released after a judge ordered it be made public, sparking outrage and protests. The officer continues shooting after McDonald crumples to the ground and is barely moving.

A Justice Department Civil Rights investigation of the police force would be separate from the federal investigation now under way in connection with the Jason Van Dyke shooting. Jackson said he hoped that the investigation would focus not only on the police department, but on Emanuel’s office and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office, which he and others have criticized for taking so long to bring charges against Van Dyke.

The city Friday released hundreds of pages of documents related to the October 2014 killing of McDonald by Jason Van Dyke, a white police officer.

Escalante told the Chicago Tribune (http://trib.in/1NAsbLk ) that he’s sent inspectors to do random checks of dashcams.

What’s on video and what the officers reported could all be true, said Dean Angelo, president of the Chicago police officer’s union, because each officer had “a different perspective”, which could vary significantly from the fixed auto camera.