This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/us/chicago-police-misconduct.html

The article has changed 8 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 2 Version 3
Chicago Police Misconduct Investigators Release New Videos Chicago Releases Police Videos of Civilian Shootings
(35 minutes later)
CHICAGO — The agency that investigates Chicago police misconduct cases on Friday released videos, audio recordings and other material about some 100 incidents, the latest effort to rebuild public trust in the beleaguered police force. CHICAGO — Chicago officials on Friday released dashboard-camera videos and other investigative materials from 101 cases of officer-involved shootings or other instances when civilians were injured at the hands of the police. The move was a turnaround for an administration that fought for a year not to release a video showing an officer shooting a teenager as he lay sprawled on the ground.
The move was very unusual for a city whose Police Department has a reputation for secrecy. Chicago officials waited until November — and then after a judge’s order — to release a video taken about a year earlier that showed Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald as he lay crumpled on the ground. Officer Van Dyke was charged with murder in the on-duty shooting. In one video, officers shot and stunned a man who, they later said, was charging them. The man, Ismael Jamison, 28, who the police said had been attacking people on a bus, survived the November 2012 shooting.
Long-strained relations between the Chicago police and residents, especially African-Americans, boiled over after the release of the dashboard camera video showing Officer Van Dyke, who is white, shooting Mr. McDonald, who was black, 16 times. Another video from 2012 shows officers firing at a van carrying three people after the van struck and wounded an officer, according to the police. One person in the van, David Strong, 27, died from his wounds, and the two others were wounded.
Since then, the city has experienced a marked increase in bloodshed. Shootings are up by 50 percent for the year, with hundreds injured and more than 230 people dead. And there are indications that the police department is getting little cooperation from citizens in their investigation of the crime surge. The case was among six that have extensive video that city officials say offers fairly complete accounts of what played out. Altogether, 68 cases have some video, but in many cases they are from surveillance cameras or are other tapes that are not particularly revelatory, the officials said.
The release was very unusual for a city whose Police Department has a reputation for secrecy. Chicago officials waited until November — and then after a judge’s order — to release a video taken about a year earlier that showed Officer Jason Van Dyke, who is white, shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was black, 16 times. Officer Van Dyke was charged with murder in the on-duty shooting.
Long-strained relations between the Chicago police and residents, especially African-Americans, boiled over after the release of the McDonald video. Since then, the city has experienced a marked increase in bloodshed. Shootings are up by 50 percent for the year, with hundreds injured and more than 230 people dead. And there are indications that the police department is getting little cooperation from citizens in their investigation of the crime surge.
Mistrust of the department, some here say, has made it harder to solve crimes on the streets, Witnesses and victims often choose not to share information with the police — one of the reasons for the decision to release the large cache of videos.Mistrust of the department, some here say, has made it harder to solve crimes on the streets, Witnesses and victims often choose not to share information with the police — one of the reasons for the decision to release the large cache of videos.
In the months following the Laquan McDonald video’s release, Mayor Rahm Emanuel faced calls for his resignation, the police superintendent was fired and the Justice Department began an investigation into the Police Department’s practices. The 101 cases include every open investigation into officer-involved shootings — whether anyone was hit or not — and every case in which a civilian was killed or seriously injured, according to officials at Chicago’s Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates claims of misconduct and excessive force.
Officials from the police review authority emphasized that they were not making any judgments about whether excessive force or other misconduct occurred in any of the cases, which are all still under investigation. They also did not single out any cases which they felt could prove the most controversial.
Instead, they emphasized their hope that disclosing the videos and other materials from the investigative files would, make people in the community more confident in the procedures for investigating police misconduct.
“These past few months, as the city has struggled with so many questions about policing and about police accountability, it has been clear that we all agree that there is a lack of trust, and that increased transparency is essential to rebuilding that trust,” said Sharon Fairley, the police review authority’s chief administrator. “Today represents an important first step toward that.”
Whatever confidence once existed was shattered in many quarters after a court in November ordered the release of video of Mr. McDonald’s shooting, more than a year after he was killed. Officer Van Dyke was not charged in the case until the release of the graphic and disturbing video was imminent.
In the months following the video’s release, Mayor Rahm Emanuel faced calls for his resignation, the police superintendent was fired and the Justice Department began an investigation into the Police Department’s practices.
Last month, a task force appointed by Mr. Emanuel issued a scathing report saying that racism had contributed to a long pattern of institutional failures by the department and that the department had lost the trust of residents.Last month, a task force appointed by Mr. Emanuel issued a scathing report saying that racism had contributed to a long pattern of institutional failures by the department and that the department had lost the trust of residents.
In March, Anita Alvarez, the state’s attorney for Cook County, the prosecutor who waited 13 months before taking action against Officer Van Dyke, was ousted by voters.In March, Anita Alvarez, the state’s attorney for Cook County, the prosecutor who waited 13 months before taking action against Officer Van Dyke, was ousted by voters.
The agency releasing the videos, the Independent Police Review Authority, would not indicate which cases would be included. The videos are expected to include police-involved shootings and circumstances in which officers used a Taser. Some are expected to show officers responding to scenes.
The confrontation with Mr. McDonald began around 9 p.m. on Oct. 20, 2014, when he was stopped by the police after a report of someone breaking into vehicles on the Southwest Side. Officers said Mr. McDonald had a three-inch folding knife and ignored calls to drop it. Instead, they said, he walked and jogged away and at one point slashed the tire of a police car.
A growing number of officers followed him for several blocks. The police dashboard camera video, made public on Nov. 24, shows Officer Van Dyke’s vehicle pulling up just before the shooting began. The officer fired the 16 shots at Mr. McDonald from about 10 feet away, prosecutors have said. No other officer at the scene fired his gun, although at least five corroborated Officer Van Dyke’s version of events — that Mr. McDonald appeared to be coming at them in a threatening way.
After the shooting, the Independent Police Review Authority, a group assigned to review police shootings in Chicago, began investigating. Within two weeks, the city’s information was handed over to prosecutors to conduct their own criminal inquiries.