Chicago police officer to seek change of venue for murder trial

Van Dyke had to link arms with supporters to get through the crowd to reach a black pickup truck that had pulled up in front of the courthouse on California Avenue to pick him up. Van Dyke, faces six counts of first degree murder and a count of official misconduct in the October 2014 shooting of McDonald, 17. 13 months later, a judge ordered the city of Chicago to release the police dash cam video of police officer Jason Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times.

Herbert said after the hearing that he was considering requesting a change of venue for his client because of comments made by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Officer Jason Van Dyke was formarlly charged with first degree murder along with one count of official misconduct.

Van Dyke, who is white, was indicted earlier this week and was scheduled to appear before a judge at noon CST Friday in Cook County Criminal Court, the Associated Press reported. The indictment alleges that Van Dyke acted “without lawful justification” in shooting the teenager 16 times to his death. It was not until uproar over the video of McDonald being shot 16 times as he apparently walked away from the police that the federal Department of Justice launched an investigation of civil rights issues in the city’s police department.

Several hundred protesters marched through downtown Chicago on Friday evening, calling on Mayor Rahm Emanuel to step down over complaints of abusive policing and a lack of accountability in the police department.

At the hearing, prosecutors are expected to read the full indictment that was handed down Tuesday.

Meanwhile, both Van Dyke’s attorney and McDonald’s family said they would like to see Van Dyke’s trial heard outside Cook County.

Brown assigned Van Dyke’s case a number and set his arraignment for December 29. His defense has previously said Van Dyke feared for his life as McDonald reportedly had a knife.

Prosecutors initially charged Van Dyke with one count of murder hours before a video of the 2014 shooting was released.

The DOJ announced the investigation on December 7 soon after the release of video showing a white Chicago police officer fatally shooting a black teenager.