US Police Reports on Black Teen Shooting Case 'At Odds' with Video
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Chicago police reports on the fatal shooting of 17-year-old black teen Laquan McDonald last year are "dramatically at odds" with the dashcam video that triggered protests in the city last week, documents released on Saturday said.
Hundreds of pages of police documents released early Saturday from the investigation of the police officer shooting death of Laquan McDonald shows that cops at the scene offered a starkly different picture of what led to fellow officer Jason Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times than what a dashcam video released last week depicts.
The court-ordered release of the jarring video of the 17-year-old McDonald being gunned down last year by a police officer on a Chicago street appears to show that the teen had been shot as he was veering away from police officers.
But police officers who were at the scene offered a different narrative in which they back Van Dyke’s contention that he fired because he feared for his life. Van Dyke and five other officers at the scene gave statements after the shooting in which they say McDonald, who was holding a knife, was moving toward Van Dyke when the officer fired, according to the newly-released documents.
The documents were released early Saturday by Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration, The USA Today reported.
Hours before the city released the video last week, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez announced she was charging Van Dyke with first-degree murder, nearly 400 days after the incident.
Chicago police released a dashcam video Nov. 24, 2015, that shows the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was killed by an officer in October 2014. The officer, Jason Van Dyke, has been charged with first-degree murder.
Prosecutors say Van Dyke fired within seconds of getting out of his vehicle. While several officers were at the scene, Van Dyke was the only officer to shoot and fired 13 of the 16 shots at McDonald while the teenager was lying on the ground, according to prosecutors.
The release of the video has touched off days of peaceful protest in Chicago and calls from activists for the resignations of Emanuel and Alvarez. The protesters charge that Alvarez and Emanuel covered up the case. The two elected officials say they've acted in good faith and won't resign.
