Prosecutor Declines To Charge Officer Who Shot Chicago Man In The Back

He has also asked for a special prosecutor to be appointed to the case.

In a Monday morning news conference Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez announced there will be no criminal charges in the case of a second young black man shot dead by a Chicago police officer.

In theory, but she has failed at that, so now that job should go to United States Attorney Loretta E. Lynch, who has already launched an investigation into the Chicago Police Department.

Alvarez also said her office shared the dashcam video of the shooting with the FBI in November 2014, and the FBI declined to join the investigation.

Anger over delays in releasing the McDonald video have led to mounting pressure on the city of Chicago to reveal other police videos from other shootings, including the death of Johnson, who was shot and killed by the police in an unrelated episode eight days before the death of McDonald in 2014. The video showed Johnson running from police across a street with several officers in pursuit, and then one officer shooting. No one was hurt, but the bullets shattered the rear windshield and damaged the auto. Shortly after, police arrived at the scene, reportedly saw Johnson carrying a gun, and ordered him to stop and drop the weapon.

Two other officers with guns drawn confronted Johnson who stopped running. Officers reported that Johnson ran from the scene after being pulled over by police.

In both shootings, authorities were forced to publicly release dash-cam footage.

The dash came video shows Johnson exiting the auto and running away from officers.

Prosecutors slowed the video down to show what appears to be a gun in the 25-year-old man’s hand.

“There was nothing in his hand, not a gun, a cell phone, a bottle of water – nothing”, family attorney Michael Oppenheimer told the Chicago Tribune.

Dorothy Holmes, the mother of Ronald Johnson, at a news conference last week. Johnson was armed with a loaded gun at the time of the shooting, she said.

Police officers have considerable leeway when it comes to using lethal force. But if he was fleeing the scene, he didn’t pose as a threat at the time.

Last week, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said she sent a letter to the US attorney general asking the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to investigate the Chicago Police Department to see whether its practices violate the Constitution and federal law. Johnson was shot to death by Officer George Hernandez in October 2014.

Alvarez, in the midst of a tough re-election fight, dismissed claims by the attorney for the Johnson family that a gun had been planted by Chicago police at the scene, saying it was unsupported by the evidence. To show how such events can quickly turn tragic for police, Alvarez also played a video of an unrelated shooting in which a fleeing suspect had shot and wounded an officer giving chase. Van Dyke has been charged with first degree murder in connection to the shooting.