Newly released emails show Rahm Emanuel’s ‘Independent Police Review Authority

While the video release of a Chicago police officer’s shooting of Laquan McDonald prompted a domino effect of change, including the ousting of the police superintendent and a federal civil rights investigation, the department finished 2015 on an ironic note: Officers shot the fewest people that they have in years. The officer pleaded not guilty this week to murder charges.

And in May, when a spokesman for the review board asked Emanuel about doing interviews (since there was some media interest in the case), an Emanuel spokesman said that they need to “tread lightly” if the focus is on the specifics of the case.

Shortly after the McDonald video was released, the city released reports of police officers at the scene of that shooting, and this week, the city’s law department released thousands of pages of internal documents as a way to demonstrate its commitment to transparency.

Not surprisingly, Chicago has repeatedly tried to block incriminating video footage of these police shootings from coming to light, citing ongoing legal investigations in the cases.

Justice advocates have criticized Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his administration for what they see as stonewalling over the issue: Investigators had the video for a year but only took obvious action to respond once it was publicly released.

Interesting enough, there are very little emails that mention Emanuel’s name and when it does, he was often referred to as “MRE”, the AP noted. We’ve been tracking the media coverage of the Laquan McDonald case and would like an update.

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.

“As you might imagine, the timing and details discussed in the Sun-Times article and growing interest in the McDonald incident has not worked in our favor, and is helping to ‘stir the pot, ‘” Emanuel aide Vance Henry wrote.

The emails also reveal that even after police superintendent Garry McCarthy was forced to resign, he was able to follow developments among city officials because he still had access to his email account.

LeGrier and Jones, 55, were shot and killed by an officer who was responding to a domestic disturbance call LeGrier’s father made at the apartment building he owns last weekend. But he acknowledged the rank-and-file “might all have different opinions”.