As Chicago Police Shooting Video Is Released, Grief Is at Odds With the Truth
The police officer said his life was in danger. A teenager, ignoring orders from police to drop a four-inch knife he carried, walked away from a growing crowd of officers, slashing the front tire of a squad car on his way. Sixteen bullets later, the 17-year-old lay dead in the street, with only a dashboard video camera to explain what happened during the lost moments in between.
In the past two years, video footage has played an increasingly important role in raising awareness of force, lethal and otherwise, used by police against civilians. From New York to South Carolina to California, video captured by cell phones, dashcams, and body cameras has helped courts and communities figure out what really happened during encounters in which civilians—predominantly black, often unarmed—have been left dead. Now, the same may happen in Chicago.
On Thursday, a Cook County judge ordered the city to release the footage of one such shooting to the public more than a year after Laquan McDonald was killed by a police officer. McDonald, who allegedly refused to drop a four-inch knife, was shot 16 times by officer Jason Van Dyke on Chicago’s Southwest Side in October 2014.
The video, which has been kept from the public while the city and the FBI conduct independent investigations, apparently shows Van Dyke firing rounds into the black teen’s body even after he lay motionless on the ground, according to the Chicago Tribune. Within hours of the court’s order, the city abruptly dropped its lawsuit and said it would release the video to the public by the following Wednesday.
The order comes during a week in which Minneapolis residents have taken to the streets for six days straight to demand the release of footage of another shooting. Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old resident of the city’s North Side, was shot by a police officer on Sunday morning and was taken off life support on Monday. Bystanders say Clark was in handcuffs when he was shot in the head; police say he was not restrained and was interfering with paramedics. Activists argue releasing the video could help settle the dispute and allow residents to heal.
In April, the Chicago city council offered McDonald’s mother, Tina Hunter, a settlement of $5 million, even though no lawsuit had been filed by the family. Stephen Patton, a city lawyer on the case, conceded at the time that pre-lawsuit settlements were somewhat unusual in police shooting cases but said the choice was consistent with the city’s goal of resolving cases “before they generate a lot of fees and expenses and become more difficult to resolve,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Hunter and other members of McDonald’s family have said they do not want to watch the video and are not interested in having it broadcast, according to the Tribune. Still, lawyers for the family have said they understand it is important for the public to bear witness to the footage.
The flood of videos of police shootings circulated on the Internet in recent years has sparked controversy over whether or not we need to watch horrific footage of black civilians being harmed and killed by police—and whether or not the vast number of those videos has numbed the public to these deaths. But some believe the videos play a key role in achieving justice for the families and communities of the deceased and have increased police accountability.
In Minneapolis protesters outside the city’s fourth police precinct continue to urge the police department to release footage of the encounter in which Clark was shot. They say they are simply seeking the truth.
“We are not here for show and tell,” activist John Martin told Reuters this week. “We are here for answers.”
Related stories on TakePart:
• Hundreds of Deaths Later, the Feds Will Finally Start Tracking Police Shootings
• Why It’s Important to Watch the Walter Scott Video
• Bystander Videos Could Be Key in Ending Brazilian Police Violence
Original article from TakePart
