DOJ Launches Civil Rights Probe into Chicago Police Department

On Nov. 24, Police Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder in Laquan’s death more than a year after the fatal shooting and only after protesters demanded that dash-cam footage of the fatal encounter be released.

Federal investigators will look into the possibility of widespread civil rights violations in the department, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Monday. Van Dyke reportedly killed McDonald in October 2014, and video footage from the event, released last month, depicts the officer repeatedly shooting the teen, using all 16 rounds in his 9mm pistol, even though McDonald did not seem to pose an immediate threat. Van Dyke has been charged with murder. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel initially opposed an investigation of the police department but reversed his opinion a day later. The video was also slowed down to show what McCarthy said was a gun in Johnson’s hand.

Experts say some communities increasingly do not feel they are getting the kind of policing they should. City officials also fought to suppress the video’s release.

Last December, the Justice Department found that the Cleveland police systematically engaged in excessive use of force.

While McDonald’s death did not spark the kind of social tumult in Chicago that police killings in Ferguson and Baltimore did in 2014 and 2015, the ensuing investigation into the Chicago police could lead to large-scale reforms in one of the nation’s largest police forces. Both the attorney general and the city’s mayor cited “trust” as the need for the investigation.

Cook County’s chief prosecutor, Anita Alvarez, admitted that the timing of the charges against the officer involved were to make the shooting less of a scandal.

Just hours after news of the investigation broke Sunday evening, the head of the agency that investigates police misconduct, Independent Police Review’s Scott Ando resigned, effective immediately, after two years on the job.

“Our investigation is focused on use of force and accountability”, said Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin said this investigation shouldn’t be viewed as a penalty, but rather as an opportunity. The dashcam video shows McDonald jogging toward police, and then he appears to be walking away from police as he’s shot 16 times, many bullets hitting him after he falls to the ground. More than 25 police departments around the country have experienced some form of DOJ involvement in the past two decades, according to a 2013 report from the Police Executive Research Forum, but such consent decrees can drag on and become costly for cities.

Over the weekend, Chicago officials released police reports from the incident that contradict the events seen in the video – which was recorded on a police car’s dashboard camera.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago is now conducting its own investigation into the McDonald shooting.

Lynch said the investigation will be a wide-ranging examination taking a deeper look at the practices of the police department.