The Next Shoe

I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last criminal indictment arising from the killing of Laquan McDonald. From WGN television:

CHICAGO — There are new discrepancies in the Laquan McDonald case.

The Chicago Tribune obtained hundreds of pages of police reports that differ dramatically with dash cam video of the shooting.

Officer Jason Van Dyke told investigators that McDonald lunged at him before he shot McDonald 16 times last October.

Van Dyke said he thought McDonald was trying to kill him.

In the report, Van Dyke said he continued to fire because it appeared McDonald was trying to get back up.

Van Dyke defended his actions, telling investigators that he was aware of spring-loaded knives.

He also said the department had recently issued a bulletin, warning officers that there are knives that can shoot bullets.

At least five other officers also said McDonald moved toward them in a threatening way, but no one else fired their guns.

Van Dyke is now charged with murder in McDonald’s death.

It depends on the standard that is used to judge the officers’ actions. If the standard is “was you there, Charlie?”, it will be one thing. Police officers are generally given the benefit of the doubt. If a reasonable person standard is adopted, the outcome may be quite different. And then there are the possible conspiracy charges. How close are the various officers’ reports of the incident?

4 comments… add one
  • Guarneri Link

    I would be hard pressed under either standard to exonerate Van Dyke or the other liars, er, police officers. And neither view has anything to do with what is obviously a Rahm cover up. So my attention turns to Obama and Hillary.

    Obama can be as disingenuous as he likes and get away with it. And it’s not news he’s disingenuous. But he’s not running. Hillary has a class A problem. And the pictures and quotes are already out there. Her only decision is campaign ads showing her current affiliation with the big city mayor/pal who covered up shooting a black, or campaign ads showing former affiliation etc? I suspect that the Black Votes Matter calculation will lean towards the latter and Rahm needs to decide whether to go down swinging alone on his island, or take one for the team in return for promises that it will be made worth his while, like calling off the legal dogs and future “commercial considerations.”

    I still say the media is crucial. If asked to deep six this and they do, six months from now it will be Laquan who? I can’t quite place that name. Van Dyke to jail, perhaps a few scalps for jail or early retirement, er, resignation, and Rahm spends “more time with the family” and we will discover two things: how much black lives matter, and how much black votes matter. We will relearn for the umpteenth time they are vastly different things. Will people, including blacks, vote with McDonald or is their payoff being contemplated as we speak, and will they take it. Historically, they usually do. Hillary is counting on it.

  • While it’s not unreasonable to infer things about people who keep a vicious dog, that doesn’t mean that the dog required its owners’ direction to attack.

  • ... Link

    Indicting the other officers for crimes from providing false statements to conspiracy will probably cause trouble with the current force, but might be more important and effective towards getting meaningful change than indicting and convicting the cop who killed McDonald.

  • Indicting the other officers for crimes from providing false statements to conspiracy will probably cause trouble with the current force

    That’s the inherent contradiction of the situation in Chicago. Politics and reform are diametrically opposed. Rahm Emanuel must retain the support of the FOP to stay in office and he can’t reform the CPD while retaining the support of the FOP.

    I think the situation in Chicago is such that a mayor can only succeed by pitting the public employees’ unions against one another. Emanuel has already lost the CTU. He can’t lose the FOP, too.

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