Chicago Police Officer Charged With Murdering Black Teen Posts Bond, Leaves Jail

A white Chicago police officer, charged with murdering a black teenager, posted bond today as protests continued over a patrol car’s dashboard camera video that showed the officer shooting the teen 16 times. Protesters marched around City Hall Monday afternoon holding signs and pushing coffins while changing “16 shots!” Angelo said that he is concerned not only for Van Dyke’s safety but for the safety of all uniformed police officers in the city. Witness interviews had been done over the past year, and “up until a week ago they were still interviewing people”, she said.

An autopsy showed McDonald had wounds in the scalp, neck, chest, left elbow, both arms, and his back, and only two of the wounds-to the lower back and upper leg- could be “definitively linked” to the seconds when McDonald was standing.

In the audio-free video, Laquan can be seen walking down the middle of a four-lane street. Herbert argues that the officer shot out of fear for his life and that the footage distorts the distance between the officer and McDonald at the time of the shooting.

“We were warned if we declined to move we would be arrested”, Brooks said. Van Dyke had been on paid leave since McDonald’s death, but has since been fired from the Chicago police department. Last week, a coalition of black city council members announced that they too wanted reforms in the police department as well as the resignations of Alvarez and Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.

Van Dyke turned himself in to state’s attorney’s investigators at 7:41 a.m. Tuesday in their offices at the criminal courthouse at 26th Street and California Avenue, booking records show. Van Dyke spent the last week behind bars, including Thanksgiving Day. He was met at Cook County Jail by his father.

The campus was nearly desolate aside from police and campus security on Monday after university officials canceled classes due to an Federal Bureau of Investigation tip of a threat of gun violence. Alvarez has become the center of a political firestorm in Chicago for her 13-month delay in bringing first-degree murder charges against Van Dyke.

24 the video was finally released, a full year after McDonald’s death.

WBEZ reported in April that Chicago’s City Council approved a million settlement with McDonald’s family, which had not filed a lawsuit.