US Attorney General announces civil rights investigation of Chicago Police

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.

Emanuel’s administration released the video only after a judge ordered the city to make it public. The officer in that case has been charged with murder.

The video shows the teenager walking around and possibly away from police before gunshots rang out.

The video, which prompted protests upon its release and led to the firing of Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, undercuts those accounts.

The Chicago Tribune is reporting (http://trib.in/1XW2I4I ) that Turner’s legislation has support from co-sponsor Rep. David McSweeney, a Republican from Barrington Hills.

A citizen denied records under FOIA may challenge the decision in court.

Many people who took to the streets questioned why it took 13 months to release the video.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan says she’s pleased the U.S. Department of Justice will investigate use of force by the Chicago Police Department. Lynch said the civil rights probe would be a separate investigation. “We will examine, with our experts, policies, practices and data”. Police have said that McDonald refused to comply with orders to drop a knife he had been wielding.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel had initially been resistant to the idea of a federal probe, but he eventually relented under pressure.

Lynch said the investigation will review the departments’ use of force, deadly force and how it held those officers who used excessive force accountable. The officer continues shooting after McDonald falls to the ground and is barely moving. In March, the department released a scathing report of the Ferguson police force that found pervasive civil rights abuses.

The announcement of a pattern-and-practice investigation comes after a police report released over the weekend showed information contradictory to what appeared on the video. The Justice Department investigation “may take decades to finish”, said Jonathan Smith, a dean at the University of the District of Columbia law school and former chief of the Justice Department’s Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division.

The review is expected to be a wide-ranging examination of the police department as a whole, spurred by the events surrounding the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald but not limited to that event alone. The Justice Department recently started similar inquiries into police operations in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, both scenes of fatal police shootings of black men.

“Every American expects and deserves the protection of law enforcement that is effective, that is responsive, that is respectful, and most importantly constitutional”, Lynch said.

The police department and the city government have faced massive criticism since a video showing a police officer fatally shoot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times was released in November. Van Dyke has been charged with first-degree murder.

Van Dyke had been on site less than 30 seconds, and out of his vehicle for six seconds, when he started shooting, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez has said.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel argued that he did not release the recording because he did not want to interfere with the investigation.

On Monday, while U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch was still speaking, the mayor reiterated that he welcomes the investigation and pledged the city’s “complete” cooperation.