Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is taking a beating at the hands of the country’s newspaper editors this morning. The editors of the New York Times are no more impressed by the steps the mayor took yesterday than I was:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel demonstrated a willful ignorance when he talked about the murder charges against the police officer who shot Mr. McDonald, seeking to depict the cop as a rogue officer. He showed a complete lack of comprehension on Tuesday when he explained that he had decided to fire his increasingly unpopular police superintendent, Garry McCarthy, not because he failed in his leadership role, but because he had become “a distraction.â€
Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, left, and police Superintendent Garry McCarthy announcing first-degree murder charges against the police officer who shot Laquan McDonald.Op-Ed Contributor: Cover-Up in ChicagoNOV. 30, 2015
Mr. Emanuel’s announcement that he had appointed a task force that will review the Police Department’s accountability procedures is too little, too late. The fact is, his administration, the Police Department and the prosecutor’s office have lost credibility on this case. Officials must have known what was on that video more than a year ago, and yet they saw no reason to seek a sweeping review of the police procedures until this week.
The question they can’t quite bring themselves to ask is why has the Justice Department, apparently, been sitting on its hands? It opened its investigation a year ago. Where’s the beef?
The Washington Post‘s editors have noticed that, too:
And what about the feds? FBI and Justice Department officials began investigating the McDonald killing just weeks after the fact. If Ms. Alvarez wouldn’t move to bring Mr. Van Dyke to justice, why couldn’t they? It’s not just that Chicago’s police force needs an overhaul (though it does); in the McDonald case itself, there must be accountability for the apparent lies, evasions and coverup that goes beyond the prosecution of one police officer.
They also call for Anita Alvarez, the Cook County States Attorney, to be more forthcoming about her inaction or resign.
Astonishingly, our local papers are giving the mayor a day off today.
Why is it a surprise they’re giving the Mayor a day off? They didn’t even want to get the video, if I’m understanding the reports correctly. If not for some free-lancer this thing might still be languishing.
Where the fuck is the press in this country? Is there anything a Democrat can do that they won’t excuse?
So much for Black Lives Matter, racist white cops, or any of the other progressive bullshit. Why anybody even addresses their nonsense as if they are honest is beyond me. They are clowns, and they should be treated as such – thus, the Bellman.
“Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes.”
“Is there anything a Democrat can do that they won’t excuse?”
Well, if their last name is Clinton or Obama, apparently not.
Anyway. It’s hard for me to imagine that the decision to deep six this story wasn’t top downed on the cops by City Hall/cook County. It’s early days, so misinformation abounds, but there is a report that the settlement with the family contains a clause that the family agrees not press for release of the video. That’s a smoking gun as to Rahm’s intent, and truly ghoulish. It creates quite a problem for the press to truly explore this, what with Rahm’s ties to a Clinton and Obama. Expect a coverage firewall capped at the state level or, perhaps, the poor woman, a sacrificial AG Lynch.
BTW – anyone heard when the beer summit or “could look like my son” press conference is? And who is giving Al Sharpton his marching orders??
Nice reporting on this, please keep it coming.
I am stunned that the Feds also seem to be complicit in burying this. I wasn’t surprised that local officials did so but expected more from the Justice Department and FBI. Call me naive, I guess.