Police Accounts Appear to Differ With Laquan McDonald Shooting Video

However, prior to the video’s release, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy felt the need to hold an impromptu press conference, in which they urged Chicago residents to remain lawful -in anticipation of community outrage and public anger.

Carson suggested stepping up support to Jordan to care for refugees or resettling them in friendlier regions. Though Sanders never mentions his name the comments appeared aimed at Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a long-time ally of the Clinton family and former White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama.

But Emanuel’s announcement came a week before U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang is scheduled to decide Thursday whether to compel the city to release the dashcam video.

A Chicago police spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, said the Independent Police Review Authority conducts all investigations of officer-involved shootings and the agency was given the case report and videos.

The city late Friday released hundreds of pages of police reports and other investigation documents pertaining to the case, including a December 2012 bulletin warning officers about a “revolver knife” that Van Dyke cited.

In a subsequent interview, Van Dyke told investigators that he was aware at the time he fired at McDonald that the teen had punctured the tire of a police vehicle moments before.

Van Dyke was one of the first officers on the scene, and was later tasked with writing the general offense case report.

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“In defense of his life, Van Dyke backpedaled and fired his handgun at McDonald, to stop the attack”, one report reads.

Even more damning, minutes after Laquan was shot, several police officers entered a local Burger King just yards from where the teen fell, demanding to view the store’s surveillance video. The authority, which did not return a message left Friday, has not released its report on the McDonald shooting.

Newly released documents show that the officers at the scene of the shooting described a dramatically different sequence of events leading up to McDonald’s death.

“If the criminal investigation concludes that any officer participated in any wrongdoing, we will take swift action”, Guglielmi said.

According to the Tribune, federal prosecutors are investigating the officers who made statements as well as the officers who prepared the reports of the statements.

Why? Initially, the narrative being put forth by the police alleged that the victim (Laquan McDonald) was wielding a knife at officers and was considered risky.

Officer Ricardo Viramontes said he saw McDonald “turned toward Van Dyke and his partner”.

Walsh said McDonald attempted to get up after falling, “while still armed with the knife”.

Van Dyke told investigators that McDonald was “swinging the knife in an aggressive, exaggerated manner” and raising the weapon above his shoulder from about 10 to 15 feet away, according to the reports. He said he eventually kicked the knife away from McDonald and then told the dying teenager “Hang in there” as an ambulance was called. But the shots sound more like synthesized drums than the rippling crack of the 9mm gun that, according to the charges against him, Van Dyke used. But, in another contradiction, one of the police reports said the recovered knifes “blade was in the open position.”One of the reports noted what it called McDonalds “irrational behavior, ” such as ignoring verbal directions, “growling” and making noises.

An autopsy report by the Cook County medical examiner would later determine that the “well developed, well nourished black male” was shot 16 times.