The shooting death of Laquan McDonald flew under the radar for over a year. In that time, the city anted up a whopping five million dollar settlement. In fact, the settlement was reached only six months after McDonald fell to a hail of gun fire from a single officer. Law enforcement agencies don’t pay up that fast unless they know they screwed up. The Cook County State Attorney confirmed this week, that the Chicago PD did screw up. The details of this case are sadly routine and familiar. Black kid shot by white cop and police do nothing.
A year later, first degree murder charges were filed by the State Attorney against Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago PD shooter. Laquan died as a result of 16 gunshots, some of which received after he was already dead in the street. “It is my determination that this defendant’s actions — of shooting Laquan McDonald when he did not pose an immediate threat of great bodily harm or death, and his subsequent actions of shooting Laquan McDonald while he lay on the ground after previously being struck by gunfire — were not justified and they were not a proper use of deadly force by this police officer” stated Anita Alvarez, the State Attorney in charge of the case. The police were not forthcoming with the dash cam footage of the shooting. It took months of formal requests by community leaders and a Freedom of Information Act request by a journalist to uncover the chilling footage.
The one thing that Chicago has accomplished in the wake of this tragedy, is unity in the face of rampant corruption. Protesters organized and marched in solidarity without riots and looting, and without the chaos that has plagued so many of our American cities. There were a handful of arrests, but all in all, the citizens of Chicago have demonstrated to the US and the world that the people can have their voices heard while remaining dignified. While the urge to retaliate with violence will always remain, Chicagoans have demonstrated the much needed restraint we have needed to show the world.
The legal battle, I fear, will be uphill for the prosecution. While it is clear to any rational person who watches the McDonald shooting video, that he was murdered without provocation, the defense have a ton of legal ground from which to work. First off, McDonald was armed with a knife. Threatening no one, but sometimes that does not matter. The defense will surely bring up the 21 foot rule. The 21 foot rule states that if a subject is armed with a knife and within 21 feet of the officer or a potential victim, the subject doesn’t need to be threatening anyone to be shot. The shooting was clearly not justified, but you can expect the defense team to use all tools at their disposal to get this case dismissed.
While it is hard to have hope when incidents like this continue to make front page news, hope is all we can have. The process of change is slow, but we are seeing change happen before our eyes. This case is the first case in the city of Chicago to result in an on duty shooting prosecution in decades. Awareness is spreading and has reached a critical mass. People are no longer willing to tolerate these casualties of the police state and those who can do something about it are starting to listen. I believe that the road ahead is shorter now than the road from which we have come. Only by remaining strong and united, like the people of Chicago, can we stay the course.
Sources:
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/24/us/laquan-mcdonald-chicago-shooting-video/index.html
