Chicago announces police reforms to prevent civilian deaths

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Wednesday that the city will overhaul police tactics and training to mitigate tension between residents and officers following the outrage caused by the deadly police shootings of Laquan McDonald in 2014 and Bettie Jones and Quintonio LeGrier on Saturday.

The mayor said any officers involved in shootings will get 30 days of desk duty, and pledged a doubling of the number of tasers in the Chicago police force, with a renewed emphasis on training. McDonald’s and other high-profile police killings drove hundreds of protesters to block Chicago’s retail district on Black Friday, the U.S.’s post-Thanksgiving sales event.

Emanuel told reporters Wednesday that just because officers are trained to use lethal force does not mean they should use it indiscriminately.

None of the eight police officers at the scene of McDonald’s shooting in 2014 had a Taser, although they had asked for a unit equipped with a Taser to come to the scene. Van Dyke has been charged with murder.

The release follows weeks of protests that began after a judge ordered the release of the video last month, more than a year after the October 2014 shooting.

The 19-year-old man fatally shot by Chicago police last weekend spent most of his life in foster care, and his longtime foster mother says she never saw him be violent.

Interim police superintendent John Escalante said the department is going to emphasize mitigation or de-escalation techniques officers can use when encountering a suspect.

Though the Independent Police Review Authority, or IPRA, is supposed to maintain a distance from police and the mayor’s office, a March 11 email from Ando inquires about forwarding witness interview transcripts to the law department “for their use in settlement negotiations with” the McDonald family.

Emanuel announced at a press conference earlier this month the termination of Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, saying that the public’s trust in the Department has “been shaken and eroded”. But the video showed that the young man, although carrying a knife, was moving away from the officers when he was shot repeatedly. “And like all of us, they are human and they make mistakes”, the mayor said.

The death of black teen Laquan McDonald by an officer led to the city’s police chief being axed and days of protests.

NPR’s Cheryl Corley spoke to protester Mack Julion in Chicago, who says he doesn’t think Emanuel was trying to be open about what happened.

The fallout prompted the mayor to cut short a family vacation to Cuba. He didn’t reply directly but pointed out that the problems at the CPD built up over decades, rather than in the last four years when he was mayor of the city. Quintonio LeGrier was shot dead as was Bettie Jones, a first-floor tenant and neigbour of LeGrier and his father, Antonio LeGrier, who lived on the second floor.

Other departments across the country have already moved toward helping officers discern whether they can safely hold back – and even take cover – to allow a tense or escalating situation to defuse.