Here it is:
The officer who shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was charged with first-degree murder today. But cops in Chicago upheld a blue wall of silenceâwhich I wrote about in the Seattle context hereâaround this incident, which occurred on October 20, 2014. You have to read this Chicago Reporter story about how police 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 McDonaldâs shooting a few weeks earlier âwasnât being vigorously investigated,â as Kalven recalls. The source told them âthat there was a video and that it was horrific,â he said.
Without that whistleblowerâand without that videoâitâs highly unlikely that Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke would be facing first-degree murder charges today.
âWhen it was first reported it was a typical police shooting story,â Kalven said, where police claim self-defense and announce an investigation, and âat that point the story disappears.â And, typically, a year or 18 months later, the Independent Police Review Authority confirms the self-defense claim, and âby then no one remembers the initial incident.â
âThere are an average of 50 police shootings of civilians every year in Chicago, and no one is ever charged,â said Futterman. âWithout the video, this would have been just one more of 50 such incidents, where the police blotter defines the narrative and nothing changes.â
A Burger King manager has now gone on record claiming that Chicago police entered her store and diligently deleted surveillance video footage of the incident. The dashcam video itself is now being released because of a judge's order, and despite the department's claim that releasing it would hinder its investigations.
Considering the way police go out of their way to shield those within their ranks from accountability for horrific crimes, the efforts of prolific government records requestersâpeople like Tim Clemans, Phil Mocek, and Eric Rachnerâto simply get as much police information out into the public domain as possible seem more vital than ever.