Mayor Emanuel creates police accountability task force

December 1: Emanuel fires Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and names a five-member task force to make recommendations on improving police accountability.

Emanuel praised him for knowing how to run a large police force and said the city needed “a leader with Garry’s depth of experience and a track record for delivering results”. It cost him his job, one chief of detectives John Escalante will take over in the interim.

The video shows Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times shortly after Van Dyke stepped out of his vehicle.

Emanuel, McCarthy and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez have faced criticism for taking 13 months to release the video of the 2014 shooting and to charge Van Dyke.

The mayor’s office and police department tried to keep the video hidden until a court order forced its public release last week, Huffington Post reports. The officer was charged with first-degree murder in the death of McDonald.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan sent what she characterized as an urgent request to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, asking that the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division investigate Chicago police use of deadly force and the department’s internal review process, and determine whether there is a “pattern of discriminatory policing”. On Monday he was released from jail on bond. He has a knife in his hand, but is yards away from any person, walking quickly down the middle of the street. In the video, Van Dyke is seen firing a volley of shots at McDonald, many of them after the teenager had already fallen to the ground.

“In light of recent events, the community’s confidence in the police and in the system of accountability must be rebuilt”, he said in a statement on Tuesday. Many see the city’s shroud over the McDonald footage as having delayed the massive protests that have become part of the nationwide debate on race and policing. Van Dyke is now out on bail.

On Sunday night, Emanuel said, the two began discussing erosion of trust in the department among Chicago residents.

In an interview with CBS Chicago, McCarthy said recently he was aware the whole situation – from the shooting itself to the more than year-long delay in releasing the video of the shooting – would be “trouble”. Chicago police have said 25-year-old Ronald Johnson of Chicago was fatally shot by an officer on October 12, 2014. When disruptive protestors arrived in droves and threatened city safety, McCarthy stood out front with his department to keep protests peaceful and to minimize disruption.

Even the Chicago Teachers Union, which rarely sees eye to eye with City Hall, said this time the mayor got it right.