Chicago mayor to create police accountability panel

Seeking to calm growing criticism about his administration’s handling of police misconduct cases, Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he will appoint a new “police accountability task force”.

Yet the video and various actions taken before and after the shooting point to systemic and institutional problems that extend far beyond one allegedly trigger-happy cop.

Less than a week later after the video was released, the first head rolled.

The mayor defended the decision to withhold the video from the public until the investigation was finished. Hiding behind the nudge-nudge, wink-wink veil of “ongoing investigation”, transparency in the shooting was fairly non-existent. “I am not going to share that information”, Hebert told FOX 32 News Monday. “They’re two conflicting principles”.

The mayor said McCarthy had become “a distraction”. I think I’m doing my job. “I’m not trying to incite”.

Emanuel said Tuesday that he and the superintendent began talking about how the McDonald case had “shaken” public trust in the police.

Last week Van Dyke’s wife, Tiffany, set up a GoFundMe page asking for online donations for her husband’s bond, but it was taken down that same day. He had been in jail since Tuesday after prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder for shooting McDonald 16 times on October 20. The task force will review how the city trains its police officers and the kind of oversight they face.

Van Dyke appeared in court on Tuesday for a bond hearing, but prosecutors did not present the judge with the dashcam video.

Alderman Howard Brookins Jr., a member of the black caucus, said he appreciated Emanuel’s “willingness to change course”.

Not all police officers at risk – just white officers who kill young black men. In this case, Emanuel will give the yet-to-be-named panel four months to make recommendations for changes in the city’s police department. Chicago Police Chief Garry McCarthy was sacked.

In particular, McCarthy was a constant preacher on the need for tougher punishments for gun offences.

Policing and street violence have emerged as leading issues for Emanuel since his election in April to a second term after being forced into a runoff.

McCarthy rose through the ranks of New York City’s police department and was police director in Newark, New Jersey, when he was hired in Chicago.

Van Dyke had been in custody since November 24, when he was charged with first-degree murder.

An autopsy confirmed McDonald was shot a total of 16 times and showed he had PCP in his system. Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez has said that forensic testing did not show police tampered with footage, though she wouldn’t say who conducted the test.

Nonetheless, Van Dyke’s lawyer, Daniel Herbert, maintains that “his client feared for his life, acted lawfully and that the video did not tell the whole story”.

After spending the Thanksgiving holiday in jail, Van Dyke was freed on a US$1.5 million bail on Monday. Earlier this year, a district manager for the Burger King chain told a federal grand jury that several police officers had entered a Burger King near the scene of the shooting shortly after the incident and deleted 86 minutes of footage from the restaurant’s security cameras. Emanuel spokeswoman Kelley Quinn said the city was “looking into” releasing it.

But Primeau said it is hard to believe none of the police vehicles had workable audio.