Laquan McDonald was a 17 year old young man who was shot 16 times by a Chicago police officer in 2014. The video of the shooting was released more than a year later and apparently there is evidence of a cover-up by the police department. The cover up might be the reason why it took so long for the authorities to release the video.
16 Bullets
Officer Jason Van D*** fired 16 times at Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old African-American in 2014. Seven officers responded to their colleague’s fatal shooting of the young man.
He was holding a knife
The police officers claimed that McDonald had a knife in his hand and refused to drop it, while approaching the officers. A police spokesman even said that he was coming at the officer, with clear intentions.
The video was released
After the video was released, evidence didn’t sustain the officer’s statement. You can clearly see that McDonald was a few feet away from Officer Van D*** who shot at him 16 times.
Shooting for no reason
The victim was not walking towards the officer when he started shooting, he was actually walking away from the police cars. As it appears to be, although the victim was on the ground after a few bullets, the officer kept shooting at him for no reason.
Public pressure
The video was released under public pressure, 13 months later, as the incident incited protests among the outraged Chicagoans. The city tried to keep it private until a county judge ordered its release.
Code of silence
They managed to expose the code of silence that existed between the officers, who said that the shooting happened completely in a different way than the dashboard camera video reveals.
More evidence
In the proximity of the shooting there was a surveillance camera from Burger King. The employees claim that the police arrived there after the shooting and asked for the video. After this, 80 minutes of footage went missing.
No audio
The videos that were released to the press don’t contain any audio, so you can’t tell what they were talking during or after the shooting.
Police recordings
The law says that audio and video recordings are necessary when the police cars have the roof lights on. They claimed that the absence of audio recording was probably caused by a technical error.
Laquan McDonald was a 17 year old young man who was shot 16 times by a Chicago police officer in 2014. The video of the shooting was released more than a year later and apparently there is evidence of a cover-up by the police department. The cover up might be the reason why it took so long for the authorities to release the video.
The Chicago City Council
The Chicago City Council payed $5 million to the victim’s family even before the trial began. They did this so the family won’t release any evidence before the investigation was complete.
Riots across the city
The case increased skepticism, started riots and the force is still trying to restore public trust. The critics include how unnecessary the killing was, and how casually police officers lied about the circumstances in order to protect their colleague’s mistake.
Charges
The 7 officers were accused of making false reports. Van D*** was the only one who fired his gun, and he was charged with murder. Although all the evidence is against him, he pleaded not guilty by saying that he feared for his life.