Jamie Kalven on the Laquan McDonald Cover-Up

The Rev. Marvin Hunter (left), Laquan McDonald’s great-uncle, said: “What we’re feeling in Chicago is the real feeling of America itself, and that’s injustice against people of color”, during a news conference.

Several prominent Chicago pastors have rejected Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s “olive branch of peace” and are demanding that his administration release yet another video in which a white police officer fatally shot a black teenager.

Hunter, from the Grace Memorial Baptist Church, called on the president to convene a federal summit in North Lawndale, the Chicago neighborhood where McDonald was from, to address police violence and brutality. Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez is our guest this week on Newsviews.

At all of the protests in the City there’s been a call for the resignation of Mr. Rahm Emanuel, the Mayor, and Ms. Alaverez.

An attorney for the family of a black teenager killed by a Chicago police officer says they agreed not to release video of the shooting unless the officer wasn’t charged. But she added that Dart was not aware of that until his top aides began making inquiries late Wednesday following the Tribune call.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s job approval rating has fallen to 18 percent, and 51 percent of Chicagoans think he should resign. She said the officer provided a description of what he believed were the teen’s last moments.

The video shows McDonald being shot 16 times by Officer Jason Van Dyke in October 2014.

For days, hundreds of protesters have shut down the streets of Chicago to rally for the resignations of Emanuel and Alvarez in response to the shooting video. Demonstrators have questioned why it took months to release the video and charge Officer Jason Van Dyke with murder.

The group is also demanding the release of all dash cam videos of police initiated shootings and the appointment of a new prosecutor to handle these cases now and in the future. He fired the police chief and named a new head of the police review agency that investigates police conduct. Neither officer faced any administrative discipline over the incident, Smith said, because the sheriff’s office did not require any reports to be filed. The timing of that payment so shortly after Emanuel’s job was secure again has raised suspicions that City Hall knew more about the gap between police officials’ story and the video evidence during the campaign.