Chicago Police: Some crimes dropped in 2015, homicides rose

Former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, who was charged with murder last month in the shooting death of 17-year-old McDonald last year, was indicted on six counts of first-degree murder and one count of official misconduct earlier this week.

A video of the officer shooting McDonald – which was not made public until more than a year later, on November 24 – led to protests and repeated calls for Emanuel to resign.

Adam Collins, Emanuel’s spokesman, sent many emails to staffers about media stories written about the shooting, one with the subject line of an article named, “If Chicago police have video of teen shooting, let’s see it: advocates”.

Documents reviewed by the AP show that the head of the city’s Independent Police Review Authority exchanged emails with aides to Emanuel, including on handling media interviews. “It is absolutely critical in this case, as in all police-involved shootings, for the investigative agency to get it right so that justice can be served”.

NEWLY released email correspondence has indicated a cover-up by authorities in the U.S. city of Chicago over the police shooting of a black teenager.

Before the ruling of whether or not the dash-cam would become public record, there was a draft of a speech being written for Emanuel about the video, a video that he claimed he never saw.

The release of the video set off weeks of demonstrations and forced the resignation of Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.

“If we focus on those, year to year we may go up or down depending on what’s going on”, Pollack said, “but over time I’m convinced that we can bring the [murder] rate down”.

“We must ensure our officers have the right tactics, the right training and the right technology to resolve tense situations safely and securely”, Emanuel told reporters. He said “force should be the last option and not the first choice”.

Emanuel noted that on audio recordings of communications between dispatchers and officers on the scene the night of McDonald’s shooting, several officers can be heard “frantically” asking for a stun gun before the shooting. What would send the message, he said, is legal action against officers and other officials who attempted to hide facts surrounding McDonald’s death.

“There’s a problem that has to be addressed”, Emanuel said.