Chicago police officer’s interview before his trial sparks legal fight

CHICAGO — Attorneys prosecuting a white Chicago police officer in the 2014 shooting death of a black teenager asked a judge Thursday to revoke or increase his bail after the officer discussed one of the nation’s most infamous police shootings in a media interview.

Jason Van Dyke’s interview with the Chicago Tribune took place with his attorney standing nearby, and it quickly set off a new legal fight just days before jury selection in the case, which led to days of protests after a video of the shooting was made public and Van Dyke was arrested.

When attorney Joel Brodsky saw the interview, he said, he knew one thing for sure: Van Dyke is never going to take the witness stand in the slaying of Laquan McDonald.

“This allows him to basically testify without taking the stand and being under oath, to tell the jurors that he’s not a racist [and] he’s never fired his gun,” Brodsky said. “If he was going to take the stand, why give the interview?”

Prosecutors said the officer’s comments, published Wednesday on the front page of the Tribune, were a clear violation of the judge’s order prohibiting the parties in the case from talking about it publicly. A court hearing was scheduled for Saturday.

For the officer and his legal team, the interview raised the curtain on their strategy to humanize Van Dyke for prospective jurors. Until now, they said, their client has been defined only as the officer seen on dashcam video pumping 16 bullets into the body of a teenager armed with a folded pocketknife.

“During the past four years, there have been thousands of news stories portraying Mr. Van Dyke in an extremely negative light in this case,” attorney Daniel Herbert said in a statement in response to prosecutors. “Not one has included Mr. Van Dyke’s voice.”

It can be a risky move, something Brodsky saw for himself when he represented Drew Peterson, the suburban Chicago police officer who was charged with murder in the death of his third wife. Before he was convicted in 2012, Peterson gave interview after interview to national and local media outlets, often appearing smug and even enjoying the limelight brought on by investigation into the death of Kathleen Savio and the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson.

“His downside was not the things he was saying. It was his personality [and how] everything was a game and a goof to the guy,” Brodsky said. “If I had it to do again, I would have restrained Drew more.”