Vol. 81/No. 26 July 17, 2017
Chicago cops charged in cover-up of McDonald killing
“This indictment alleges that these defendants lied about what occurred during a police-involved shooting in order to prevent criminal investigators from learning the truth,” Holmes said at a news conference. “The indictment makes clear that it is unacceptable to obey an unofficial code of silence.” She added, “We will follow all roads where they lead and we will seek the truth.”
The three cops face up to 10 years in prison if convicted. They are scheduled to turn themselves in for arraignment July 10.
After refusing for 14 months to release the cops’ dashcam video of the killing, Chicago authorities finally did so on Nov. 24, 2015, in response to a court order. Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder hours before the video was made public.
The tape clearly showed McDonald walking away from police as Van Dyke shot him 16 times — 14 after the young man was on the ground. The video contradicts the accounts Van Dyke and other cops gave at the scene, claiming that McDonald lunged at them.
Following the release of the tape, opponents of police brutality mounted sustained protests for months demanding justice and condemning both the cops and city administration for the cover-up. The public protests led to the firing of Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel sought to contain political damage caused by the shooting and cover-up.
A few days after the video’s release, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was investigating whether the Chicago Police Department had systematically violated citizens’ civil rights. In January 2017, more than a year after launching the probe, the Department of Justice issued a scathing report on the Chicago cops. “Among the most egregious uses of deadly force,” the report said, “were incidents in which CPD officers shot at suspects who presented no immediate threat.”
“The indictment may not go high enough as it stands right now,” G. Flint Taylor of the People’s Law Office, a civil rights attorney who has pushed to keep the case in the public eye, told the press June 27. “But it certainly is a historic and significant event in terms of criminally charging police officers who engage in a code of silence.”
“It’s good these three were indicted,” Black Lives Matter spokesperson Kofi Ademola told the Militant. “But what we want to see is their conviction and Van Dyke’s conviction. That would begin to set a precedent that police cannot get away with killing and abusing people then lying about it to cover it up.
“This kind of thing goes on every day against working people, especially Black working people — from police beatings to cop killings — and they always use the excuse that they were attacked or feared for their lives,” he said. “At the end of the day it’s not going to stop until the entire system of policing and prisons is abolished and replaced by a system that puts human needs before profits. Winning convictions of Van Dyke and the others is a step in that direction. So people need to keep the pressure on.”
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