Chicago Protests Mostly Peaceful After Video of Police Shooting Is Released
ByMONICA DAVEYandMITCH SMITHNOV. 24, 2015
CHICAGO — Demonstrators took to the streets of this city’s downtown in tense but largely peaceful protests after the release of video on Tuesday showing the fatal shooting of a black teenager by a white Chicago police officer.
Into the early morning hours of Wednesday, protesters led clusters of police officers on a march through the streets of Chicago’s Loop, blocking intersections, chanting outside a police station and, along a major road to the city’s largest highways, unfurling a banner that cited deaths at the hands of the police.
The night of protest followed a day of fast-moving events: first-degree murder charges against the officer, Jason Van Dyke, in the shooting of Laquan McDonald, 17, and, hours later, the release of graphic video from a police dashboard camera of the 2014 shooting, which a judge had ordered the city to make public by Wednesday.
In a period that has seen sometimes - violent unrest over police conduct in places like Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, some in Chicago seemed relieved by the relative calm. “While on the whole last night’s demonstrations were peaceful, a few isolated incidents resulted in five arrests related to resisting arrest and assaulting police officers,” a police spokesman said on Wednesday.
Still, some community leaders have called for more demonstrations here, including a boycott and protest on Friday, the post-Thanksgiving shopping day, of this city’s famed shopping district along North Michigan Avenue known as the Magnificent Mile.
The grainy, nighttime dashboard camera video, which a judge ordered released last week, shows the young man running and then walking past officers in the middle of the street and spinning when bullets suddenly strike him down. For a moment, lying on the ground, he moves but then is still after he appears to be shot several more times. An officer kicks an object away from his body. The video shows none of the officers on the scene offering Mr. McDonald assistance.
Standing with community leaders before releasing the video, MayorRahm Emanueland Garry McCarthy, the Chicago police superintendent, said they expected demonstrations in response to the graphic nature of the video, and urged people to avoid violence. “It’s fine to be passionate, but it is essential that it remain peaceful,” Mr. Emanuel said.
Officer Van Dyke, 37, who has been with the Police Department for 14 years, is the first Chicago police officer in decades to be charged with murder in an on-duty shooting. The city previously fought to keep the video private, citing a continuing investigation into the shooting.
Officer Van Dyke was charged and the video released just over a year after Mr. McDonald was shot 16 times, even after he had stepped slightly away from the officer, prosecutors said. Witnesses said Mr. McDonald, who was carrying a three-inch folding knife, never spoke to Officer Van Dyke or any of the other officers and did not make threatening moves toward him. None of at least seven other police officers on the scene fired their weapons.
The N.A.A.C.P., on Twitter, called it “unacceptable” that it took over a year for the video to be released.
The family of Mr. McDonald, which had opposed the video’s release, issued a statement through its lawyers calling for calm. “No one understands the anger more than us, but if you choose to speak out, we urge you to be peaceful,” the family said. “Don’t resort to violence in Laquan’s name. Let his legacy be better than that.”
In announcing the murder charge, Anita Alvarez, the Cook County state’s attorney, acknowledged that she had pushed to charge the officer before the video became public. “I made a decision to come forward first because I felt like, with the release of this video, that it’s really important for public safety that the citizens of Chicago know that this officer is being held accountable for his actions,” Ms. Alvarez said.
Since late last year, the shooting has been investigated by a team that included the F.B.I., the United States attorney’s office in Chicago and the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. But Ms. Alvarez said she decided to proceed with charges on her own when the videotape was ordered released. Federal charges are still possible, legal experts said, and the federal authorities said their investigation was continuing.
Ms. Alvarez, a two-term Democrat who is seeking re-election in March, defended herself against suggestions that the investigation had taken too long, saying investigations into police shootings often take more than a year. And she rejected claims that she had buckled to political pressure by filing the charges before the video came out, saying she had reached a conclusion several weeks ago that charges were warranted.
Hours before the video’s release, a judge, Donald Panarese Jr., ordered Officer Van Dyke held without bail, indicating that he wanted to see the video before revisiting the question of bond at a hearing on Monday. Officer Van Dyke faces 20 years to life in prison if convicted.
Dan Herbert, a lawyer for Officer Van Dyke, has said the officer believed the shooting was justified because he feared for his safety and that of other officers. Mr. Herbert said his client “absolutely” intended to go to trial. Dressed in a beige sweater and jeans, Mr. Van Dyke said little during the brief hearing.
The charges and the release of the video came amid a national debate over race, police shootings and a growing number of violent encounters with the police captured on video. Chicago’s police force has its own sometimes painful history, which by some estimates includes more than $500 million in settlements and other costs over the last decade tied to police misconduct as well as reparations for black residents who said a group of officers abused and tortured them in the 1970s and ’80s.
In April, the cityagreed to pay $5 million to the McDonald family,even before a suit had been filed in the case.
On the evening of Oct. 20, 2014, police officers approached Mr. McDonald on the city’s Southwest Side, prosecutors said, after a resident reported seeing him breaking into trucks and stealing radios. Mr. McDonald, who had the folding knife in his hand, walked away as officers arrived. Someone called for a police unit with astun gun, though it was not clear whether anyone ever appeared with one. At one point, Mr. McDonald “popped” the tire on a police car, apparently with his knife, the prosecutors said.
With more officers arriving car by car, Mr. McDonald kept walking and jogging along, not responding to orders to drop the knife, prosecutors said. Near a Burger King along a busy stretch of Pulaski Road, Officer Van Dyke’s marked Chevrolet Tahoe pulled up alongside other police vehicles, including one containing a dashboard camera. Officer Van Dyke was on the scene for fewer than 30 seconds, prosecutors said, before he began shooting his service weapon, which had a 16-round capacity.
The shooting spanned 14 or 15 seconds, and in about 13 of those seconds, prosecutors say, Mr. McDonald was lying on the ground. He was hit 16 times, including in his backside. An autopsy showed the presence of the drug PCP in his system.
For months, the city had refused to release the video. On Thursday, Franklin Valderrama, a Cook County judge, ordered it released. The city initially indicated that it would appeal, but Mr.Emanuelthen announced that Chicago would release the video, and he issued a statement condemning Officer Van Dyke’s actions and calling for prosecutors to take prompt action.
“In accordance with the judge’s ruling, the city will release the video by Nov. 25, which we hope will provide prosecutors time to expeditiously bring their investigation to a conclusion so Chicago can begin to heal,” Mr. Emanuel said last week. On Monday, he met privately with community leaders and pastors.
Officer Van Dyke has worked as a Chicago police officer since June 2001, records show. He had been on administrative duty pending the investigation, and on Tuesday was placed on no-pay status because of the criminal charge, Mr. McCarthy said.
Mr. Herbert, the officer’s lawyer, said Officer Van Dyke was highly decorated with an excellent record and numerous awards. But records show that the officer had been the subject of numerous complaints from residents, including allegations of using excessive force and making racial slurs.
Mr. Herbert said that no merit had ever been found by the authorities in any of the allegations against Officer Van Dyke.
The Chicago police are frequently involved in shootings, including15 from July to September this year. But officers here rarely face charges for firing their weapons.
Dante Servin, a detective, is perhaps the most notable exception in recent memory.Mr. Servin was charged with involuntary manslaughterin a 2012 off-duty shooting that resulted in the death of Rekia Boyd, an unarmed black woman.A judge acquitted Mr. Servin this year.
Officials said Mr. McDonald was a ward of the state at the time of his death, and was attending an alternative school, Sullivan House High School. “He was coming every day, joking and even giving hugs,” Thomas Gattuso, the principal, said in an interview.
Michael D. Robbins, a lawyer for Mr. McDonald’s family, said he had been raised, in large part, by a grandmother, who died in 2013. His mother had been working to regain custody before his death, Mr. Robbins said.
His mother has not been able to bring herself to watch the video, he said. “She is very, very distraught,” Mr. Robbins said Monday evening. “It’s a reminder about the loss of her son — and it’s going to come as this big, glaring, publicly displayed event. She is very emotional.”
3 Are Dead in Colorado Springs Shootout at Planned Parenthood Center
A police official in Colorado Springs identified the man in custody as Robert Lewis Dear.
The police did not describe the motives of the 57-year-old gunman. For hours on Friday, officers traded gunfire with him inside the clinic before they were able to shout to the man and persuade him to give up, according to Lt. Catherine Buckley, a police spokeswoman.
“The perpetrator is in custody,” Mayor John Suthers said at an evening news conference. “There is a huge crime scene that has to be processed,” he said, “and we have to determine how many victims there are.”
Lieutenant Buckley said the gunman had brought several suspicious items to the clinic, and investigators were trying to determine whether they were explosives.
The shooting came at a time when Planned Parenthood has been criticized because of surreptitious videos made by anti-abortion groups of officials discussing using fetal organs for research. It transformed a shopping area near the clinic into chaos as snow fell and gunshots rang through the parking lot. Black-clad tactical officers stood guard with guns in hand, ambulances lined up and dozens of shoppers and employees were ordered to stay away from windows and lock their businesses’ doors.
The encounter could be heard in transfixing detail on the police scanner, with the authorities describing how they had driven a BearCat armored vehicle into the Planned Parenthood building, smashing through two sets of doors into the lobby and rescuing some of those inside.
“We’re exchanging gunfire,” one officer said on the radio. “We are trying to keep him pinned down.”
“Put gunfire through the walls,” came a reply. “Whatever, we got to stop this guy.”
The standoff, which began shortly after 11:30 a.m., was terrifying for the family members of those inside, such as Joan Motolinia, who said his sister called him from the center as the shots began.
“As soon as I heard the shots, she hung up on me,” he said. “And I didn’t want to call her back and risk her life.”
The officer killed in the shooting was identified late Friday as Garrett Swasey, 44, a six-year member of the University of Colorado campus police force here. He was among scores of law-enforcement officers, medics and firefighters from the Colorado Springs Police Department, the university police, the El Paso County sheriff’s office, the F.B.I. and other agencies who raced to the scene.
Despite being at a heightened state of alert, F.B.I. officials in Washington appeared caught off guard in the hours after the shooting and said that they knew little about what occurred.
At a news conference at Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs, Fire Chief Christopher Riley said he had met with four officers wounded in the shooting and said they were all doing well, conscious and talking, “but obviously injured and shaken.” The conditions of others wounded were not immediately known, and some confusion remained hours after the shooting. One woman who had been inside the clinic said she was still trying to find her boyfriend, who had been with her.
The local authorities were visibly shaken as they stood in the snowy dark to announce that the suspect had been taken into custody and that the siege was over. Much remained unknown, including how many people had been inside the clinic and how the gunfire had erupted. Cathy Alderman, vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said the group believed all of its staff members were safe, but was still working to confirm the status of its patients.
Officials from both law enforcement and Planned Parenthood said they did not know whether the group’s Colorado Springs center had been specifically targeted. But the attack carried echoes of other violent assaults on abortion providers, and it prompted the police in New York City to deploy units to Planned Parenthood clinics in the city.
In a statement, Vicki Cowart, president of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said the group had strong safety measures and worked closely with local law enforcement.
“We don’t yet know the full circumstances and motives behind this criminal action, and we don’t yet know if Planned Parenthood was in fact the target of this attack,” she said. “We share the concerns of many Americans that extremists are creating a poisonous environment that feeds domestic terrorism in this country. We will never back away from providing care in a safe, supportive environment that millions of people rely on and trust.”
Since abortion became legal nationally, with the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, many abortion clinics and staff members across the country have been subjected to harassment including death and bomb threats, and hundreds of acts of violence including arson, bombings and assaults and eight murders, according to figures compiled by the Naral Pro-Choice America Foundation.
Planned Parenthood’s Colorado Springs center was one of many locations around the country that became the site of large anti-abortion protests over the summer after abortion opponentsreleased surreptitious videosof Planned Parenthood officials discussing using fetal organs for research. On Aug. 22, the day of nationwide protests to defund Planned Parenthood, more than 300 people protested outside the clinic here, according to local news reports.
Colorado Springs is an area of fast growth about 60 miles south of Denver and home to an Army base and an Air Force base. Bryan Hawke, 35, a chiropractor who was holed up with six others in his one-story brick-fronted chiropractic office that is across the parking lot from Planned Parenthood, said the center is the scene of near-daily protests.
“There are protests of varying sizes outside that building probably six days a week,” he said. Sometimes the protests attract as many as 200 people, but “most days there are a dozen people there,” he added.
Mr. Hawke’s receptionist first heard gunshots Friday morning and started shouting. “I heard them yelling at me to grab the keys,” he said. He quickly locked the door.
Mr. Hawke spent the morning watching SWAT team members swarm the parking lot. They were clad in black, wearing helmets and shields. They spent time pulling people from their cars — people had been stranded in their vehicles when the shooting began.
Denise Speller, a manager at a Supercuts salon near the shooting scene, said she saw police cars streaming through the small shopping center and pull up by a nearby Chase bank as gunshots echoed across the parking lot. She said she saw one officer positioned by his cruiser apparently struck by a bullet.
“We just saw him go down,” Ms. Speller said in a telephone interview.
Security concerns at the clinic were high enough that the clinic had a “security room” with a supply of bulletproof vests, but, according to an officer on the scanner, some of the vests were still in the room, and one may have been worn by the gunman.