Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
82_28 » Tue Nov 24, 2015 11:50 pm wrote:And they like it that way. Dude was on PCP they say (which I don't understand why anyone would choose to do that shit) but the cop was clearly on something else -- namely his ego filled aggression and an itch to test drive his side arm on a human and see the human explode because of his power. Just to see. . .
Rot, fucker. You could have reached out and sent him to supervision and treatment. But I don't know what the fuck that means anymore.
Burger King manager told grand jury of gap in Laquan McDonald video
Scene near shooting
Community activists and residents gather outside a Burger King to pay tribute to Laquan McDonald near the scene of his 2014 death at 41st Street and Pulaski Road in Chicago on Nov. 24, 2015. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
Jason MeisnerContact Reporter
Chicago Tribune
Manager of restaurant near where Laquan McDonald shot says he testified before grand jury about gap in video
As the shocking video of a Chicago police officer fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald is played worldwide, other footage from the scene that night has gone missing.
Minutes after McDonald was shot 16 times by Officer Jason Van Dyke on a Southwest Side street, several police officers entered a Burger King located just yards from where the teen fell, demanding to view the restaurant's password-protected surveillance video, Jay Darshane, a district manager for the fast-food chain, told the Tribune this week.
Four new Laquan McDonald shooting videos raise more questions
When the police left the restaurant almost two hours later, the video had an inexplicable 86-minute gap that included when McDonald was shot, according to Darshane.
"I was just trying to help the police with their investigation," Darshane said. "I didn't know they were going to delete it."
Darshane revealed to the Tribune for the first time that he testified about the missing footage before a federal grand jury earlier this year.
A technology support employee for Burger King who tried unsuccessfully to recover the video also appeared before the grand jury, he said.
In addition, the FBI hauled away the restaurant's digital video recorder containing all its surveillance images, according to Darshane, who oversees several area Burger Kings.
After Cook County prosecutors charged Van Dyke with first-degree murder on Tuesday, federal prosecutors disclosed their probe of the fatal shooting remains "active and ongoing."
Tribune coverage: The Laquan McDonald shooting
While the restaurant's surveillance system likely wouldn't have caught the shooting itself, at least two cameras positioned to face the restaurant's parking lot and drive-through lane may have captured McDonald's movements in the critical moments before Van Dyke opened fire, according to lawyers for McDonald's family.
In announcing the charge against Van Dyke, State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said forensic testing revealed no evidence that anyone had intentionally erased the Burger King video. NBC5 News first broke the story about the missing footage.
"We have looked at those videos and ... it doesn't appear that it's been tampered with," Alvarez told reporters.
At a news conference at Police Headquarters hours later, police Superintendent Garry McCarthy called allegations that officers had deleted the video "absolutely untrue."
"There were apparently technical difficulties," McCarthy said. "But in no way, shape or form is there any evidence that anything was tampered with, and I think (Alvarez) covered that."
According to court records, moments before he was shot, McDonald had crossed on foot through the Burger King parking lot at 4060 S. Pulaski Road holding a knife in his hand while being tailed by officers who had requested a backup with a Taser.
Under court order to release the police dash-cam video that captured McDonald's shooting, the city made the recording public Tuesday. A day later, in response to an open records request from the Tribune, the city released four other dash-cam videos from the incident, including one from the squad car that Van Dyke was riding in that night. That video shows Van Dyke's police cruiser approaching the Burger King and McDonald cutting in front of the vehicle as he jogs by the front of the restaurant onto Pulaski.
Crowds close stores, march on Mag Mile to protest Laquan McDonald killing
The videos, including the one from Van Dyke's vehicle, did not include any audio of officers talking, either in the vehicles or over police radios, raising questions about why sirens outside the vehicles could be heard but voices inside the vehicle could not.
Lawyers for McDonald's family have said the restaurant's surveillance cameras may have also captured McDonald puncturing a front tire of a squad car on Pulaski moments before Van Dyke and his partner came to a stop and jumped out with their guns drawn.
McDonald was shot about 2 1/2 minutes before 10 p.m., according to prosecutors.
Darshane said the restaurant's assistant manager called him that night saying about four or five police officers were inside demanding the password to access the surveillance video. He authorized the manager of the store — who wasn't working at the time — to give the code to the officers.
The officers stayed on the scene until almost midnight and even brought in their own information technology specialist when it appeared they were having trouble operating the system, Darshane said.
The equipment had been in perfect working order for weeks before the shooting, Darshane said. But the next morning, Burger King discovered the 86-minute gap when investigators with the Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates police shootings, sought to make a DVD copy of the surveillance video. Missing was any footage from 9:13 p.m. to 10:39 p.m., Darshane said.
In final weeks, Laquan McDonald tried to turn around troubled life
In final weeks, Laquan McDonald tried to turn around troubled life
When the video system kicked back on, it recorded two police officers in the Burger King office who appeared to be looking at something on the monitor over and over, according to Michael Robbins, an attorney representing McDonald's family.
"It is curious," Robbins said. "If they got there and turned it on and found that there was no video, what were they looking at for two hours?"
In addition to the missing footage, lawyers for McDonald's family have questioned the actions of other officers at the scene moments after the shooting.
Robbins said several citizens who witnessed McDonald's shooting reported that officers ordered them to leave the scene under threat of arrest without ever interviewing them. Other witnesses reported that detectives later badgered them for insisting that McDonald hadn't threatened officers before he was shot, Robbins said.
Robbins said one man who was stuck in traffic with his son saw the shooting unfold right in front of him. He followed police orders to leave, but when a police union spokesman later described in television news reports that McDonald had purportedly lunged at Van Dyke with a knife, the man came forward to challenge the account, Robbins said.
"To tell an occurrence witness who observed a fatal shooting to leave and not even ask them to identify themselves is incomprehensible," Robbins said.
Robbins said that some of the witnesses were outside the Burger King after the shooting, and the missing surveillance footage would likely have captured their interaction with police.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment on the federal probe of McDonald's shooting beyond its brief statement released Tuesday, but Scott Ando, IPRA's chief administrator, said Wednesday that no citizens later complained to IPRA about their treatment by the police that night.
Cover-Up in Chicago
By BERNARD E. HARCOURTNOV. 30, 2015
Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, left, and police Superintendent Garry McCarthy announcing first-degree murder charges against the police officer who shot Laquan McDonald. Credit Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press
THERE’S been a cover-up in Chicago. The city’s leaders have now brought charges against a police officer, Jason Van Dyke, for the first-degree murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. But for more than a year, Chicago officials delayed the criminal process, and might well have postponed prosecution indefinitely, had it not been for a state court forcing their hand.
They prevented the public from viewing crucial incriminating evidence — first one police car’s dashboard camera video; now, we learn, five such videos in total. And these senior officials turned a blind eye to the fact that 86 minutes of other video surveillance footage of the crime scene was unaccountably missing.
The Cook County prosecutor, Anita Alvarez, must have had probable cause to indict Officer Van Dyke for the Oct. 20, 2014, shooting death of Mr. McDonald the moment she viewed the police dash-cam video, after her office received it two weeks later. That video, in her own words, was “everything that it has been described to be by the news accounts. It is graphic. It is violent. It is chilling.”
Ms. Alvarez, and other city leaders, surely knew they would have to indict Mr. Van Dyke for murder as soon as the public saw that footage. “I have absolutely no doubt,” Ms. Alvarez finally said last week, “that this video will tear at the hearts of all Chicagoans.”
But the timing, in late 2014, was not good.
Then up for re-election, the mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, was looking ahead to a contested election on Feb. 24, 2015, which would ultimately result in a runoff election on April 7. In Ferguson, Mo., a grand jury was hearing testimony on the police shooting of Michael Brown. The video of Eric Garner being choked to death during an arrest in New York had gone viral. The Black Lives Matter movement was gaining momentum across the country.
The video of a police shooting like this in Chicago could have buried Mr. Emanuel’s chances for re-election. And it would likely have ended the career of the police superintendent, Garry F. McCarthy.
And so the wheels of justice virtually ground to a halt. Mayor Emanuel refused to make the dash-cam video public, going to court to prevent its release. The city argued that releasing the video would taint the investigation of the case, but even the attorney general of Illinois urged the city to make it available.
Then the city waited until April 15 — one week after Mr. Emanuel was re-elected — to get final approval of a pre-emptive $5 million settlement with Mr. McDonald’s family, a settlement that had been substantially agreed upon weeks earlier. Still, the city’s lawyers made sure to include a clause that kept the dash-cam video confidential.
Around the time the freelance journalist Brandon Smith filed suit for release of the dash-cam video, on Aug. 5, 2015, the Chicago Police Department told him that it had already received, and rejected, 14 other Freedom of Information Act requests for the evidence. The city spent thousands of dollars in legal expenses to keep the video under wraps. And it would probably have continued to do so, had Judge Franklin Valderrama of the Cook County Circuit Court not ordered its release.
Meanwhile, the state’s prosecutor, Ms. Alvarez, concluded that there had been no evidence of tampering when police officers allegedly erased 86 minutes of video footage from Burger King surveillance cameras close to the location of Mr. McDonald’s shooting by Officer Van Dyke. The missing footage was from 9:13 to 10:39 p.m. — bracketing the time when Mr. McDonald was shot (around 9:50 p.m.).
City leaders did everything in their power to keep the homicide from the public as long as possible. Indeed, Mr. Van Dyke was indicted only after the forced release of the videos.
We can surmise that each had particular reasons. Mayor Emanuel was fighting for re-election in a tight race. Superintendent McCarthy wanted to keep his job. Ms. Alvarez needed the good will of the police union for her coming re-election campaign and probably wished to shield the police officers who bring her cases and testify in court.
None of that alters the fact that these actions have impeded the criminal justice system and, in the process, Chicago’s leaders allowed a first-degree murder suspect, now incarcerated pending bail, to remain free for over a year on the city’s payroll.
There is good reason to appoint an independent commission to investigate the conduct of these public servants. But frankly, at this point, who would trust Chicago’s political institutions or criminal justice system?
Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, The Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world.
An investigation would create further delay in justice and distract our attention from the real issues at hand: the senseless death of a 17-year-old, and the systemic problems of excessive police violence and lack of accountability.
Rather than hold hearings, investigate and perhaps prosecute its leaders, the city of Chicago needs to restore trust. These officials no longer have the public’s confidence. They should resign.
The Henry Country Report has revealed leaked documents that show a narcotics team in Dothan, AL planted drugs on black men for years. The cases were prosecuted by Doug Valeska. All of the officers involved were in a local neo-confederate organization, and many of the targeted individuals remain in jail.
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