Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Chicago Police Accused of Deleting Video and Threatening Witnesses After Teen’s “Execution"

Many news outlets reporting on the Chicago Police and their efforts to cover up the murder of a 17 year-old boy. The boy was shot 16 times.

Credit: masetv.com


According to Photographyisnotacrime.com on October 20, 2014, McDonald was followed through the parking lot of the Burger King shortly before he was killed by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, the only one of the six police officers present that night who opened fire. The video from the restaurant would not have depicted the actual shooting, but would have shown the moments leading up to it.
Jay Darshane, the manager of the Burger King, told NBC Chicago and MSNBC that he thinks police detectives deleted the video after he told his employees to give them the password and allow them to access it. He said that the cameras were turned on and working properly during the night of the shooting.
“We had no idea they were going to sit there and delete files,” he said. “I mean we were just trying to help the police officers.”
The Independent Police Review Authority, which is responsible for investigating police shootings and misconduct allegations, acknowledged that the footage is missing, but did its best to defend police: “We have no credible evidence at this time that would cause us to believe CPD purged or erased any surveillance video.”

Jeffrey Neslund, one of the family’s attorneys, described the dash cam video to MSNBC:
When Laquan is about 12 to 15 feet away from the officers, the width of an entire lane of the southbound traffic, one officer begins shooting. Laquan immediately spins to the ground and the video then clearly shows that the officer continues to shoot Laquan multiple times as he lays in the street. Sixteen seconds pass from the time Laquan hits the ground until the last visible puff of smoke rises from his torso area. An officer then approaches Laquan, stands over him, and appears to shout something as he kicks the knife out of his hand.
In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Neslund referred to the shooting as an “execution.”
Van Dyke, the officer Prior to the McDonald shooting, Van Dyke had already accumulated 15 complaints, including allegations of police brutality and using racial epithets, but the city never resolved any of the complaints.
Ed Nance, one of the complainants, was awarded $350,000 by a jury after he was injured by Van Dyke in a 2007 police brutality case. Nance broke into tears after he was told about the McDonald shooting, according to the Chicago Tribune.
“It just makes me so sad because it shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “He shouldn’t have been on the street in the first place after my incident.”
Van Dyke has been on paid desk duty since the shooting.
Read the full article here: 

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