Rahm on Van Dyke verdict: ‘Jury has spoken,’ but much work ahead
The jury has done its work by convicting Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke, but the city’s work to make police reform stick is “ahead of us,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Monday.
Emanuel did not pass judgment on whether he agreed with the jury’s decision to convict the white police officer who killed Laquan McDonald of seconddegree murder and sixteen counts of aggravated battery.
Nor did the mayor want to focus on how his own decision to withhold the McDonald video until a judge ordered the city to release it had defined his second term and, perhaps, played a role in his decision to pull the plug on his re-election bid.
“We followed a policy. We’ve made fundamental changes now so, when something happens like on Jeffery and 71st, videotapes are put out much quicker,” the mayor said.
“I think you know the changes. And once the judge made a decision, we made an immediate response to it and didn’t actually fight it.”
Instead of dwelling on his own mistakes, Emanuel focused on the long road toward reforming Chicago police that will drag on — under the watchful eye of a federal monitor — long after he leaves the mayor’s office next May.
“The jury has spoken, but we are not done with our work . . . Our work is ahead of us. Although we’ve done a lot over the last two years, we still have a lot of work ahead of us,” Emanuel said.
“My entire focus is to look forward, make the changes that are necessary, so that we see through something that is lasting and fundamental that the city has not accomplished in 100 years and seven attempts.”
On Monday, Emanuel stopped short of promising to deliver a new police contract before leaving office. But he said, “It takes two to tango . . . . Have I punted on a single thing? If people want to work together, I’m ready to work together. But I’m gonna be clear: You’re not gonna Xerox past contracts that don’t make fundamental changes that are not consistent with our overall goals.”