The announcement of the civil rights investigation came nearly two weeks after the video of a white police officer shooting the black teen 16 times was ordered released by a judge. Officer Jason Van Dyke has now been charged with first-degree murder, and the department has came under fire for claiming that the teen had charged at officers with a knife — while the video clearly shows otherwise.
After unloading his gun into the young man, who appeared to pose no immediate threat, the officer continued to fire on his crumpled, lifeless body as it was on the ground. The video does not contain any sound, which the department has yet to explain.
Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez has also been under fire for not pressing charges against Van Dyke prior to the video being ordered released to the public, nearly 13 months after the killing. The family of McDonald received a $5 million settlement before even filing a lawsuit, as city officials fought to keep the footage hidden from public eyes.
In the outrage following the video’s release, Mayor Rahm Emanuel forced Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to resign, but protesters demand that the mayor himself should also resign.
"Chicago is facing a defining moment on the issues of crime and policing and the even larger issues of truth and justice," Emanuel wrote in an opinion column published in the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune. "To meet this moment, we need to conduct a painful but honest reckoning of what went wrong — not just in one instance, but over decades."
The investigation into one of the country’s largest police forces will also include a review of how the department disciplines officers and investigates misconduct accusations.
"This mistrust from members of the community makes it more difficult to gain help with investigations, to encourage victims and witnesses of crimes to speak up, and to fulfill the most basic responsibilities of public safety officials," Lynch told reporters. "And when suspicion and hostility is allowed to fester, it can erupt into unrest."
The Justice Department has also launched probes into police departments in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, following the unrest over police killings in both cities. Since the beginning of the Obama presidency, the DOJ has opened 23 such probes, the Associated Press reported.
Since 2007, there have been 409 shootings involving Chicago Police, but allegations of officer misconduct have only been found “credible” in two of the shootings.
