A white Chicago police officer has been charged with murder over the shooting death of a black teenager, just one day before a deadline by which a judge has ordered the city to release a squad-car video of the incident.The City fought like hell to keep the video under wraps, but lost.
Veteran officer Jason Van Dyke was indicted on Tuesday on a first-degree murder charge after shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times.
Note that the shooter was on the "rubber gun squad" for a year before the indictment. It's hard to conceive of another situation where a gunman might shoot a person sixteen times, including shooting the victim in the back as the victim lay on the ground and then it took the prosecutors a year to file charges, unless the killer was a cop.
A cynical observer might conclude that the cop would have been left there, if not restored to full duty, if the City had been able to keep the video secret. For it sure seems like it was only when the video was going to be released that the prosecutors brought charges.
4 comments:
At least he's finally charged...
But did they deliberately overcharge? The cop who also just got fired from a 2012 shooting of a black woman walked on criminal charges because the prosecutor failed to prove the charges they brought...
Just wondering if First Degree Murder was selected for a reason? Or am I just being paranoid? It just seems that with that charge, it leaves more room for a defense to get a few jury members to agree he had some reason to act somewhat that way, no matter how insane that appears to be right now.
BTW, that video is pretty tough to watch.
CP88, that might be their game: Overcharge and lose the case. I don't know Illinois law, but in most places, 1st degree murder requires proving premeditation. Do they have a witness who'll testify that the cop expressed something along the lines of "I'm gonna kill me one of them punk-ass niggers before I retire"?
Comrade, a quick look at Illinois Law didn't clear that up for me either. Also, the next report is that the batteries for the car mics were installed "wrong" in all five police dash-cans whose videos have been released...and CPD will be retraining its officers in correct battery usage...no electronic witness, eh?
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