WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW AS TRIAL BEGINS IN EARNEST
On a chilly night in October 2014, a man on Chicago’s South Side called 911, reporting a car break-in and setting in motion a chain of events that would find the alleged perpetrator, Laquan McDonald, lying dead in the middle of South Pulaski Road.
The echoes of the 16 shots that felled the 17-year-old McDonald, a ward of the state with a fairly unremarkable juvenile court record, reverberate throughout Chicago nearly four years after his death. Opening statements are set to begin Monday in the trial of Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke, charged with McDonald’s murder. It’s the first time in decades that a Chicago cop has faced murder charges for an on-duty shooting.
The stakes could not be higher for Van Dyke, who faces a life sentence if convicted of first-degree murder. An acquittal is likely to convulse the city at least as much as when video of the shooting first was made public in the fall of 2015. Three years later, millions of people have seen the video captured by a police dashboard camera. But there still is more to know about the case against Van Dyke.
The video
The hazy dashcam footage of the shooting is likely the most powerful evidence against Van Dyke. Filmed from a squad car parked almost directly behind McDonald, Van Dyke can be seen firing his full magazine of 16 shots into the teen, who appears to be walking away from Van Dyke. It appears 10 to 12 of the bullets struck McDonald after he hit the ground.
How can Van Dyke defend what happened on the video?
Van Dyke’s defense team has clearly staked out a self-defense case and are leaning heavily on state law governing police use of deadly force. In short, police officers are allowed to use deadly force when they fear a suspect is a threat to their safety or others. According to police reports, Van Dyke told investigators McDonald was moving toward him and then “raised the knife across his chest and over his shoulder, pointing the knife at Van Dyke . ... Van Dyke backpedaled and fired his handgun at McDonald, to stop the attack.”
The video appears to contradict that account, but the defense intends to introduce a computer animation that will likely attempt to give jurors Van Dyke’s viewpoint of the shooting. Defense lawyer Daniel Herbert has said he intends to call Van Dyke’s partner, Joseph Walsh, to testify about what he saw, “and why he didn’t shoot” when his partner did. That implies that Walsh will back up his partner’s account — though Walsh has been indicted for allegedly trying to cover for Van Dyke by making false statements.
Will Van Dyke testify?
In self-defense cases, it’s not unusual for defendants to testify. Only they can tell jurors what they saw and how they felt. If the plan is to convince them that Van Dyke feared for his life, he’s the only person who can tell them.
However, Van Dyke’s cross-examination could be brutal.
“I think he’s got to justify every time he pulled the trigger,” said Jeffrey Neslund, a former prosecutor who represented McDonald’s family and who has read the reports and watched the video probably more closely than any person not involved in Van Dyke’s prosecution.
“You just play the video and freeze it, ask him: ‘Were you in fear of your life here? What about here, after the second shot? What about here after he’s on the ground’ and do that 16 times.”
So will Van Dyke be found guilty or not?
Police officers are rarely charged with serious crimes in an on-duty shooting, and when they are, they are convicted a little more than a third of the time. Since 2005, only 93 have faced murder or manslaughter charges, with 33 getting convicted, according to data compiled by Bowling Green State professor Philip Stinson.
Why?
The law is favorable to police officers in shootings, giving them broad latitude to use deadly force when they have “reasonable fear” for their lives or the lives of others. Jurors will have to determine whether an officer acted “reasonably,” and juries tend to sympathize with police officers, Stinson said.
What about those jurors?
Van Dyke will have seven white people on his jury, only one African-American, three Latinas and an Asian-American. One juror, a Latina in her 20s, said she has applied to be a Chicago police officer, a job she said she’s wanted since she was 12.