AG: Justice Dept. investigating Chicago police

US Attorney General Loretta Lynch (C) speaks during a press conference at the Department of Justice as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta (L), head of the Civil Rights Division and US Attorney Zachary T Fardon (R) of the Northern District of IL looks on December 7, 2015 in Washington, DC Lynch announced a Justice Department investigation into the practices of the Chicago Police Department during the press conference.

Damon Williams, of the #LetUsBreathe collective, said Alvarez served more as a “defense attorney for police” in her remarks Monday rather than a county prosecutor.

Demonstrators protest the shooting death of Laquan McDonald at Chicago’s City Hall.

Hernandez will not have criminal charges filed against him because, as Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez explained during the press conference, officers reported that Johnson had a gun and was running toward a police vehicle containing two officers in the park.

Emanuel, who initially disagreed with calls for a federal civil rights investigation and is under pressure from critics over the McDonald case and, also said Lynch would have the city’s “complete cooperation”.

Van Dyke was charged last week with first-degree murder for the 2014 shooting and the mayor forced Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to resign.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday the city will release video showing the death of Ronald Johnson, 25, more than a year ago, according to CNN affiliate WLS-TV. The city reversed course and said it would in fact release the video from Johnson’s shooting after all last week.

Police killings of African-American men over the past year have shaken several USA cities and given rise to the “Black Lives Matter” protest movement. She’s a former federal prosecutor and was with Chicago’s Office of Inspector General. At this point, Attorney General Lynch can say she’s looking to cooperate with local folks, but she doesn’t need their cooperation – at this point they have jurisdiction to come in and look at police practices.

The civil-rights investigation follows recent ones in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, and comes as the police department and Mayor Rahm Emanuel are under intense scrutiny over their handling of the October 2014 death of McDonald. Investigators also will scrutinize systems set up to ensure officers are held accountable and disciplined, as well as police training.

The video release is the second in the past several weeks of Chicago cops shooting to death a young black man. Johnson was killed eight days before Laquan McDonald, 17, was gunned down by officers.

Coleman’s father, Percy, a longtime IL law enforcement official, said he believed that the officers involved in his son’s detention should be charged with crimes, and that the case was emblematic of broader racial disparities in Chicago policing. While she wouldn’t say it is 100 percent clear that Johnson has a gun, she pointed out that it’s also extremely hard, if not impossible to make out Hernandez’s gun.

“When you have a bunch of police officers now covering up, every case they’ve worked on before that, during that time and since is now suspect”, Milan said.

Calls for a federal probe intensified after Chicago police on November 24 released the video of McDonald being shot 16 times past year.

The Justice Department has opened 23 investigations of police departments since the start of the Obama administration.

So many people were tortured by the Chicago Police Department that a reparations fund was created.

Johnson’s mother said that the dash-cam video Alvarez showed to reporters is too grainy to determine that Johnson held a gun. Since Alvarez and Emanuel are both elected, they are seemingly untouchable at the moment, but the world is crumbling around them.

The Chicago City Council signed off on a $5 million settlement with McDonald’s family even before the family filed a lawsuit, and city officials fought in court for months to keep the video from being released publicly.

– The Justice Department accused the Albuquerque, New Mexico, police department of engaging in “a pattern” of using excessive force after a two-year investigation.