Illinois State’s Attorney Requests FBI Assistance in Fatal Police-Involved

The unusual step ramps up pressure on the Chicago Police Department, which is already the subject of a U.S. Department of Justice civil rights investigation over its use of deadly force, especially against minorities.

Quintonio LeGrier, a Northern Illinois University student, and his neighbor Bettie Jones, a mother of five children, were killed Saturday while officers responded to a domestic disturbance.

Garry McCarthy have been under heavy fire for the way they handled the October 2014 police-involved shooting death of Laquan McDonald.

The latest shootings came after protesters had called for Emanuel’s resignation after a video was released last month showing Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke, who is white, shooting 17-year-old African-American Laquan McDonald in 2014.

The emails raise new questions about whether the Independent Police Review Authority is truly walled off to investigate police-involved shootings without outside interference, as well as the scope of police misconduct in Chicago.

Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez says she has asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation for its help investigating a double fatal shooting by Chicago police.

“This is not something officers will have to get used to doing because they do it every day”, said Dean Angelo, president of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 7.

While Emanuel was on vacation, Bettie Jones, 55, and Quintonio LeGrier, 19, were killed on December 26 by an officer responding to a call that LeGrier was threatening his father with a metal baseball bat, another situation that critics said police could have addressed with a Taser.

The request comes as city officials face increased scrutiny over police shootings. John Escalante and the head of Chicago’s Independent Police Review Authority, Sharon Fairley, to review the department’s crisis intervention and de-escalation policies.

Emanuel’s administration has been emerged in controversy after the release of dashcam footage of the shooting ignited weeks of protests. Alvarez urged the agency to perform a thorough investigation.

Adam Collins, a spokesman for the mayor, said the mayor’s office regularly communicates with other city departments, including IPRA, “as a course of business”, adding, “in this case it was a status update on cases that were being reviewed by prosecutors for possible criminal investigation”.

The city’s law department released the emails to reporters Thursday morning.

Van Dyke, who has been charged with first-degree murder, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Van Dyke and other officers on the scene filed reports saying that the teen lunged at the officer with a knife.