Emails show Chicago coordination after shooting

By October, Henry noted organizing by community groups around the McDonald case and the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Rekia Boyd by another Chicago officer. Emanuel has said that he hadn’t seen the video of the shooting before it was released publicly.

Back in May, mayoral spokesman Adam Collins complained to colleagues that the Independent Police Review Authority’s didn’t follow his recommendation on how to respond to a TV station about McDonald.

Attorneys for McDonald’s family approached the city just over a month before Emanuel’s re-election offering to discuss settling the case without a lawsuit.

Activists were skeptical Wednesday that the changes would reverse decades of problems and mistrust between Chicago residents and police. The two sides eventually settled on $5 million, an amount approved by the city council shortly after Emanuel won a second term. Newly released e-mails show city hall officials scrambling to limit political damage once public pressure reached the mayor’s doorstep.

“Can anyone do an interview?”

Earlier in December, Chicago’s mayor also announced the resignations of the superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, Gary McCarthy, and the head of the Independent Police Review Authority, Scott Ando, but protesters are demanding that the mayor also step down from office.

Collins responded, “I completely agree that we need to engage more, but if their focus is on specifics (sic) investigations we should tread very lightly”.

His comments come as scrutiny mounts over the 2014 shooting death of teenager Laquan McDonald.

The top prosecutor also stressed that her office “does not control the pace or process of IPRA” and that the investigative agency needs “to get it right so that justice can be served”.

In 2015, the department made a slight revision to its use-of-force policy by banning an officer from shooting at a moving vehicle – if that is the only weapon being used by the suspect.

Escalante cited a 21 percent increase in 2015 in the number of arrests in which a gun was confiscated as evidence that his officers are doing their jobs properly. They put their lives on the line so the rest of us can be safe. They said they’ll continue to show up for 16 days in all. “Our job is to reduce the chances of mistakes”. “Willful misconduct and abuse can not and will not be tolerated”.

Emanuel pledged training to make police encounters with citizens “less confrontational and more conversational”. He said “force should be the last option and not the first choice”. Tasers can cost between $500 and $1,000, potentially putting the price tag for the new stun guns at around $700,000.

Information for this article was contributed by Sara Burnett, Michael Tarm, Ivan Moreno and Carla K. Johnson of The Associated Press.