Police no longer ‘above the law’
Jury holds white Chicago cop accountable in fatal shooting of black teen
CHICAGO — A rare scene in the American justice system unfolded Friday in a Chicago courthouse: A white officer stood before a mostly white jury and was convicted of killing a black teenager.
It was the second such verdict nationally in two months. Jason Van Dyke’s guilty conviction for second-degree murder and multiple counts of aggravated battery for fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times came two months after a Texas officer was convicted in the killing of a 15-year-old unarmed black boy.
The guilty verdicts could signal a shift in momentum after years of delayed arrests, non-indictments and not guilty verdicts. Activists and advocates say their efforts, along with the ubiquity of cellphone camera evidence, could be changing the power balance between police and black communities.
“We’re starting to see some verdicts that are in line with justice,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change, a civil-rights group that has supported electing reform-minded district attorneys in cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia.
“No verdict is going to bring Laquan back or change the way he was taken from his family, friends or community. But being able to start sending a message to law enforcement that they’re not above the law is important.”
It was not an outcome some expected, despite evidence including a video of McDonald’s shooting. It is extremely rare for police officers to be tried and convicted of murder for shootings that occurred while they were on duty. Before the conviction Friday, only six non-federal police officers had been convicted of murder in such cases — and four of those were overturned — since 2005, according to data compiled by criminologist and Bowling Green State University professor Phil Stinson.
Several cases in the past few years — including the police-involved deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Eric Garner in New York; Tamir Rice in Cleveland; and Freddie Gray in Baltimore — have ended in disappointment for many in the black community, as white officers have gone unpunished.
Black Lives Matter built momentum from that outrage after 18-year-old Brown, who was unarmed, was fatally shot by a white Ferguson police officer in August 2013. Fuelled by social media and nightly street protests, thousands of young people pressed for change in how police deal with black communities.
Protests spread around the country when other African-Americans were killed by police. They demanded arrests, indictments, convictions and police reform. The Justice Department investigated multiple police departments and found patterns of racial discrimination.
The McDonald case fuelled a racially charged atmosphere in Chicago, and the city anticipated violence if the verdict had gone the other way.
“If jurors would not convict a police officer who shot a man ... 16 times, when that man was not threatening the officer in any way, when would they convict?” said Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor Paul Butler.
“The concern was that it was a very real possibility, based on the way these cases usually go.”
Van Dyke, 40, was the first Chicago officer to be convicted of murder for an on-duty shooting in 48 years. He was taken into custody moments after the verdict was read.