How to get away with murder

7th December 2015   ·   0 Comments

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that a cop in Chicago thinks there’s nothing wrong with standing over a Black teenager and firing 16 shots into him. And the fact that people in the Chicago Police Department and the mayor’s office saw nothing wrong with keeping video footage of the incident secret for 13 months.

Chicago PD Officer Jason Van Dyke stood over 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in October 2014 and committed cold-blooded murder, firing 16 shots into the teen as he lay on the ground.

Even though the shocking video wasn’t released to the public until last month, the City of Chicago reached a $5 million settlement with the family of Laquan McDonald in April.

So why did it take so long for the City of Chicago to make the video public or take action against Officer Jason Van Dyke?

Apparently, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel was running for re-election and could not weather the storm that would have come on the heels of the October 2014 officer-involved murder with so many cities across the U.S. experiencing major protests in the wake of the murders of unarmed Black people like Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Walter Scott.

So instead of releasing the video and letting justice run its course, the mayor, police chief and others decided to keep the fatal shooting a secret for as long as they could.

After sitting on this information for more than a year, the mayor, police superintendent and state’s attorney all tried to spin the story like they are on the right side of justice, with Mayor Emanuel saying at a news conference, “We hold our police officers to high standards and obviously in this case Jason Van Dyke violated…basic moral standards that bind our community together.”

Some high standards. High enough to allow the incumbent mayor to successfully get re-elected before allowing the video of Laquan McDonald’s murder to be released to the voting public.

Emanuel perhaps learned a lesson or two from Ferguson, Mo. elected officials who were replaced in the wake of the furor surrounding the murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown by former Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson.

“The officer in this case took a young man’s life, and he’s going to have to account for his actions, and that’s what today is all about,” Chicago police superintendent Garry F. McCarthy said after the video was finally released.

Officer Van Dyke, the only officer who fired at Laquan McDonald, was reportedly on the scene with the teenager for about 30 seconds before he began shooting. That doesn’t sound at all like a police officer who respects human life or the U.S. Constitution. Nor does it sound like a cop who believes all lives matter, not just blue lives.

This disturbing case of Blue-on-Black murder and the subsequent cover-up by police and city officials make one wonder how many other law enforcement officers have been allowed to get away with murdering young Black men on America’s streets.

We’ve seen cops cover up, discard and fabricate evidence so many times in the past that we have to ask: How many times have cops helped their “brothers in blue” to get away with murder? How many times has the public been told that a homicide victim was another casualty of Black-on-Black violence when the “perp” was actually a cop who thinks he or she has the right to hunt and shoot unarmed Black people or use them for target practice?

The people of Chicago are rightfully appalled by the slow response of the Emanuel Administration, Chicago Police Department and the State’s Attorney’s Office, as we all should be. Heads should roll over this latest display of Blue Lives Are The Only Lives That Matter, beginning with the mayor and police superintendent.

Instead of burning down our communities, we should organize ourselves and burn down the political careers of elected and appointed officials who place so little value on the lives of Black and Brown people.

We should do it for Laquan McDonald, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray and all the unarmed victims of the War on Us being carried out by law enforcement agencies across the U.S.

All power to the people.

This article originally published in the December 7, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.