USA TODAY International Edition
Chicago police shooting trial begins
Jury selection starts in 2014 slaying of teenager
CHICAGO – Jury selection began Wednesday in the murder trial of a Chicago police officer charged in the controversial shooting death of Laquan McDonald, a high-profile incident that impacted the national debate on policing while also causing an enormous ripple effect on the political landscape in one of America’s biggest cities.
It’s been nearly four years since the officer, Jason Van Dyke, fired 16 shots at the 17-year-old, a moment that sent a shock wave through the city’s political establishment and forced a public reckoning with the Chicago Police Department’s difficult history in African-American communities.
The incident led to the ouster at the ballot box of the county prosecutor, the firing of a police superintendent and a Department of Justice civil rights investigation of the city’s police department.
It also did political damage to one of America’s most prominent mayors, Rahm Emanuel, who announced Tuesday that he won’t run for re-election.
The city was forced, under police order, to release the police dashboard camera video of the shooting to the public. The jarring footage spurred weeks of mostly peaceful street protests.
On the eve of the trial, McDonald’s family called for peace, no matter the outcome.
“We’re asking for complete peace,” the Rev. Marvin Hunter, McDonald’s great uncle, told reporters. “We don’t want any violence before, during or after the verdict in this trial.”
Outside the courthouse Wednesday, prospective jurors were greeted by dozens of demonstrators holding signs denouncing Van Dyke and chanting “16 shots and a cover-up.”
About 200 potential jurors were sworn in Wednesday and read each count of the 23-count indictment against Van Dyke before being dispatched to fill out questionnaires. Judge Vince Gaughan told the prospective jurors they would be asked to return to the courthouse for questioning by attorneys from both sides in the coming days. The judge ordered the jurors not to speak to anyone about the case.
Gaughan, who is overseeing the case, could call for a jury from outside Cook County or even move the case outside the Chicago area.
Van Dyke’s attorney, Daniel Herbert, filed a motion last month requesting the case be moved. He argued that the avalanche of pretrial publicity would make it difficult to field an impartial panel.
Gaughan said he would decide on the issue after starting the jury screening process, which will give him the opportunity to determine whether an unbiased jury could be found from the Chicago pool.
In the end, Van Dyke could also opt for a bench trial – meaning the officer would leave it up to the judge to decide his fate.
The trial gets underway one day after Emanuel made the surprise announcement he would not seek a third term as mayor. The veteran politician had seen his standing in Chicago’s large AfricanAmerican community erode over his administration’s handling of the shooting.
Emanuel, who served as a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, a Democratic leader in Congress and White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama before he was elected mayor in 2011, said that he and his wife, Amy Rule, had concluded it was the right moment for him to step away from politics.
David Axelrod, who served with Emanuel in the Obama White House, told USA TODAY the mayor had been speaking with a small group of friends and advisers over the past few months about a potential third term.
While Emanuel raised millions for the campaign, Axelrod said he expressed concern that he didn’t have it in him to spend four more years as mayor.
The shooting garnered little attention until an activist, William Calloway, and independent journalist Brandon Smith, sued the city to release the video.
On the day the city made the footage public – 400 days after the shooting – prosecutors charged Van Dyke with first-degree murder, aggravated battery and official misconduct.
The city already had agreed to make a $5 million payout to McDonald’s mother, settling a potential claim before she filed suit.
The video appeared to show McDonald veering away from officers as Van Dyke fired 16 shots at him. Police say the teen had a 4-inch retractable knife and had been breaking into trucks.
The release spurred weeks of largely peaceful protests in the city, and triggered a 13-month Justice Department investigation. The department found the excessive use of force by police was rampant in the city’s African-American and Latino communities.
Anita Alvarez, the Cook County state’s attorney at the time charges against Van Dyke were announced, faced criticism from activists who said she took too long to bring charges against the officer and was ineffective in prosecuting other cases of alleged police misconduct.
She was defeated in a Democratic primary months later by a challenger who made the McDonald case a central focus to the campaign.
Emanuel, who argued against releasing the video during an ongoing federal investigation, faced calls to resign but declined.
Police say they were responding to calls of a suspect who had been breaking into trucks in a lot on the city’s Southwest Side when they found McDonald with the knife. They say he slashed the tire of a police vehicle not long before Van Dyke fired on him.
Prosecutors say Van Dyke fired immediately after getting out of his vehicle. While several officers were at the scene, Van Dyke was the only officer to shoot and fired 13 of the 16 shots at McDonald while the teenager was lying on the ground, according to prosecutors.
After the shooting, Van Dyke told investigators that McDonald “raised the knife across his chest and over his shoulder, pointing the knife” at him before he opened fire, according to police documents.