This is why the police need to be watched

[Unregistered]

http://chicagoreporter.com/how-chica...ice-execution/

How Chicago tried to cover up a police execution



It was just about a year ago that a city whistleblower came to journalist Jamie Kalven and attorney Craig Futterman out of concern that Laquan McDonald’s shooting a few weeks earlier “wasn’t being vigorously investigated,” as Kalven recalls. The source told them “that there was a video and that it was horrific,” he said.

Without that whistleblower—and without that video—it’s highly unlikely that Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke would be facing first-degree murder charges today.

“When it was first reported it was a typical police shooting story,” Kalven said, where police claim self-defense and announce an investigation, and “at that point the story disappears.” And, typically, a year or 18 months later, the Independent Police Review Authority confirms the self-defense claim, and “by then no one remembers the initial incident.”

“There are an average of 50 police shootings of civilians every year in Chicago, and no one is ever charged,” said Futterman. “Without the video, this would have been just one more of 50 such incidents, where the police blotter defines the narrative and nothing changes.”

Last December, Kalven and Futterman issued a statement revealing the existence of a dash-cam video and calling for its release. Kalven tracked down a witness to the shooting, who said he and other witnesses had been “shooed away” from the scene with no statements or contact information taken.

In February, Kalven obtained a copy of McDonald’s autopsy, which contradicted the official story that McDonald had died of a single gunshot to the chest. In fact, he’d been shot 16 times—as Van Dyke unloaded his service revolver, execution style—while McDonald lay on the ground.

The next month, the City Council approved a $5 million settlement with McDonald’s family, whose attorneys had obtained the video. They said it showed McDonald walking away from police at the time of the shooting, contradicting the police story that he was threatening or had “lunged at” cops. The settlement included a provision keeping the video confidential.

“The real issue here is, this terrible thing happened, how did our governmental institutions respond?” Kalven said. “And from everything we’ve learned, compulsively at every level, from the cops on the scene to the highest levels of government, they responded by circling the wagons and by fabricating a narrative that they knew was completely false.” To him this response is “part of a systemic problem” and preserves “the underlying conditions that allow abuse and shield abuse.”

In April, the Chicago Tribune revealed Van Dyke’s name and his history of civilian complaints—including several brutality complaints, one of which cost the city $500,000 in a civil lawsuit—none of which resulted in any disciplinary action. In May, Carol Marin reported that video from a security camera at a Burger King on the scene had apparently been deleted by police in the hours after the shooting.

“This case shows the operation of the code of silence in the Chicago Police Department,” said Futterman. “From the very start you have officers and detectives conspiring to cover up the story. The question is, why are they not being charged?”

Van Dyke’s history “also shows what happens when the police department consistently chooses not to look at patterns of abuse complaints when investigating misconduct charges,” he adds. This failure “is one of the reasons an officer like Van Dyke has an opportunity to execute a 17-year-old kid.”

Rather than acknowledging the systemic failures, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is now trying to frame the issue as the action of one bad officer, as the Tribune reports. “One individual needs to be held accountable,” he said Monday.

Kalven calls Emanuel’s “reframing” of the narrative “essentially false.” He points out that “everything we know now, the city knew from Day One. They had the officers on the scene. They knew there were witnesses. They had the autopsy, they had the video.... They maintained a false narrative about those events, and they did it for a year, when it could have been corrected almost immediately....They spent a year stonewalling any calls for transparency, any information about the case.”

He points to Cincinnati, where last summer a university officer was indicted for murder and video from his body camera was released within days following the shooting of an unarmed African-American man in a traffic stop.

“The policy in Cincinnati is that you should release within 24 hours unless there are compelling investigatory reasons to hold on longer,” said Kalven. “The policy should be that the presumption is that this is public information and it is released as quickly as can reasonably be done, except in cases where there is a genuine and very specific investigatory need to withhold it.”

That’s not the same as waiting until an investigation is concluded. Friday’s ruling that the McDonald video must be released—and the absence of any affidavit from investigators about the need to withhold it—showed that “there was absolutely no legal or investigatory impediment to releasing this” long ago.

“This was an incredible test of leadership, a major challenge to [Emanuel’s] leadership,” Kalven said. “Think how different the situation would be right now if the city had acknowledged the reality of what happened in the days or weeks after it happened. That would have built confidence.”

And instead of vague and politically self-serving calls for “healing,” it could have begun a real process of accountability of the kind necessary to start addressing the extreme alienation between police and wide segments of our communities.

Instead, with only Van Dyke indicted, it looks like he’s being sacrificed in order to protect the system that created him.

[Unregistered]

So how is it that the "victim" came to be running away from at least 4 police vehicles who are clearly trying to stop him, running down the middle of the street, with a knife in his hand? It's easy for you to judge that cop with the luxury of hindsight and in the comfort of your own home. But where is the context of the incident in your indignation? The "victim" was less than 10 feet away when he was shot - the width of 1 lane of traffic. You don't know what was said, what the officer saw, or what led up to that moment, but you pass judgment on not only that one officer, but all of us. Yet we still go out every night and protect you from people like this "victim" who don't give a damn about your life or anyone else's. Chicago is one of the most dangerous and violent cities in the country and police officers are often the only thing that stands between that violence and civility. So think of that before you pass judgment and consider giving the person who actually was there that night and every other night the benefit of the doubt over someone who clearly had many opportunities to prevent himself from being in that situation.

[Unregistered]

The above poster is correct to let the facts come out. But the involved officer put himself in that position by approaching a wife yielding subject. Why was he the only one to do this? There were several officers on scene that shoot.

IMHO opinion the shooting was a little premature based on what I SEE in the video. I hope there we more evidence that will justify what happened but I doubt it.

We need to be honest and a little more objective with these cases. So that we don't get our hand tied behinf our backs even more that they are now.

[Unregistered]

The above poster is correct to let the facts come out. But the involved officer put himself in that position by approaching a wife yielding subject. Why was he the only one to do this? There were several officers on scene that shoot.

IMHO opinion the shooting was a little premature based on what I SEE in the video. I hope there we more evidence that will justify what happened but I doubt it.

We need to be honest and a little more objective with these cases. So that we don't get our hand tied behinf our backs even more that they are now.

That video is not from the perspective of the officer that shot. The ONLY thing that matters is what that officer saw, heard, and felt that made him decide to fire. Passing judgment on him from any other perspective is unfair and contrary to law. In addition, it looks to me from the video that the officer that shot was the passenger, not the driver, so how exactly did he put himself in that position? It is always a tragedy when life is lost, but it is wrong to judge someone who swore to uphold the law and made a career of doing it without giving him the benefit of the doubt and the respect of his own perception and perspective.

[Unregistered]

That video is not from the perspective of the officer that shot. The ONLY thing that matters is what that officer saw, heard, and felt that made him decide to fire. Passing judgment on him from any other perspective is unfair and contrary to law. In addition, it looks to me from the video that the officer that shot was the passenger, not the driver, so how exactly did he put himself in that position? It is always a tragedy when life is lost, but it is wrong to judge someone who swore to uphold the law and made a career of doing it without giving him the benefit of the doubt and the respect of his own perception and perspective.

We passed judgement on OJ. Is that ok? Listen Mr. Tactical Edge. It was a bad shoot. I don't need a different angle to see the officer close the gap. Or see the other officers that did not react the same.

We need to stop with these bullshit justifications. It is only ****ing us in the long run.

[Unregistered]

We passed judgement on OJ. Is that ok? Listen Mr. Tactical Edge. It was a bad shoot. I don't need a different angle to see the officer close the gap. Or see the other officers that did not react the same.

We need to stop with these bullshit justifications. It is only ****ing us in the long run.

You are an idiot.

Asking to reserve judgment until all the facts and information is known is not the same as justification. I think the guy who spent 15 years working as a police officer in one of the toughest parts of the toughest cities in the world deserves the courtesy of reserved judgment. That's all.

Listen Mr. Jackie Chiles, Jr., I guess you EVAC-ed that day in AMR where they showed the two videos of a police shooting from different perspectives. Everyone like you jumped to conclusions about how terrible it looked until the other angle showed the subject pointing a gun at the officers. It's funny how easily you are ready to call this a "bad shoot" after seeing one video from one angle and not knowing anything else. You must be a great cop - with your brilliant analysis of "closing the gap" and "other officer reactions" as the basis for your conclusion. Your reports must also be Shakespearean masterpieces with such great literary and grammatical gems as, "Listen Mr. Tactical Edge." That is not a complete sentence, but somehow it just doesn't matter. You make it work.

So here is the difference between this case and "OJ." "OJ" was subjected to a jury trial where evidence was presented by both sides, testimony was heard and cross-examined, expert witnesses were called and questioned, detailed crime-scene photographs and measurements were presented, evidence was collected and examined, etc. All of this "evidence" was televised for everyone to see and draw their own conclusions from. In fact, we as the viewing public were able to see more evidence than that which was presented to the jurors because the rules of evidence prevent certain things from being presented during a trial. It was only after this that we passed judgment on OJ, AND HE WAS ACQUITTED OF MURDER. So I guess I don't understand the equivalency you are trying to draw between "OJ" and this one video from one angle. Do you really believe the two are the same thing? What I am asking is for people to withhold judgment until the Officer can have his case heard in the same way OJ did. You can pass whatever judgment you want after ALL the facts, circumstances, and evidence is presented.

Oh, and just because you curse doesn't make your point any more valid.

[Unregistered]

Shooting him on the ground when there was no longer a threat was the tipping point.

Let all the facts come out. But it doesn't look good. There was no reason to kill this guy just because he was carrying a knife. If you are scared to watch a guy carrying a knife you should consider another profession.

[Unregistered]

Shooting him on the ground when there was no longer a threat was the tipping point.

Let all the facts come out. But it doesn't look good. There was no reason to kill this guy just because he was carrying a knife. If you are scared to watch a guy carrying a knife you should consider another profession.

Our job is not to "watch" a guy carrying a knife. Our job is to apprehend the fleeing criminal who was burglarizing vehicles and running down the middle of the street endangering the public. There is no expectation that we need to get stabbed before taking decisive action when faced with a threat. If you're NOT scared of a fleeing felon with a knife, then you are in the wrong profession. Everyone should be scared of that because it's dangerous. I don't know all the facts about where the guy was when he was shot or what he was doing or saying so I'm giving the cop the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. And as a reminder, cops don't shoot to kill, they shoot to neutralize a threat. There is no proof or evidence to your statement that he was "killed just because he was carrying a knife." Until all the evidence, statements, testimony, ballistics, pathology, measurements, and photographs are examined, it is not fair to judge based on one video from one angle with no audio. Maybe you've never seen what a determined person can do with a knife. I hope for the sake of your family that you Google it.

[Unregistered]

Hi you are ignorant. The man acting like a homicidal 43 wielding a knife just got done stabbing tires of police cars to immobilize the cars as his range built up and he shouted a bout "killing mother ****ers". He was well within the 21 foot gap of where the knife is far more lethal than the gun. Dont listen to ignorant idiots goin on and on about shit they have no idea they are talking about. This is another reason why I have DADE COUNTY PBA. Legal defense membership.

[Unregistered]

Dont worry our ex president the famed no neck rat Alex B., is hiding and knows all about the cameras. He will leap to your defense if needed.