Regime Change - Chicago

by Linn Washington - This Can't Be Happening

December 2, 2015

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel made a bold yet belated move when he fired his embattled police superintendent in the wake of a national uproar surrounding the release of a chilling video that captured the police killing of a teen. Included in that uproar is anger over mounting evidence of a cover-up connected to the flawed shooting graphically displayed on that video. Political and civic leaders in Chicago had demanded the removal of Chicago top cop Garry McCarthy months before Emanuel's uproar triggered ouster.

 

If Mayor Emanuel is really serious about his stated desire to rebuild “public trust” he needs to do two other things and do those two things quickly. The first thing Emanuel needs to do is issue a strong public rebuke of Chicago’s top prosecutor, Anita Alvarez. This prosecutor dragged her feet for over a year on indicting the policeman shown in that video firing 16-shots into Laquan McDonald. That police video clearly shows the 17-year-old McDonald walking away from police not lurching towards officers as Chicago’s Police Department and its police union had maintained falsely since McDonald’s fatal shooting in October 2014.

 

Alvarez did not charge Officer Jason Van Dyke with murder until after the release of the police video that captured McDonald’s wrongful death. Mayor Emanuel had fought against release of that video claiming it would undermine ongoing investigations into McDonald’s death – a stance Alvarez embraced as her explanation for not filing charges against Van Dyke earlier.