This is what the Chicago Tribune reported when Laquan McDonald was shot a year ago. Police said he slashed one of their tires and lunged at them with a knife. They had to shoot him.
But the video that was reluctantly released a year later, in response to a lawsuit, did not show the boy lunging at police. He was walking away from then when he was shot and fell. The officer then finished him off with a total of 16 shots.
No wonder Mayor Rahm paid the family $5 million. No wonder he did not want to release the video of the shooting.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Rahm has got to go.
He won’t go voluntarily, though. It’s possible Hillary and the other Dems might put enough pressure on him. It’s possible the feds will indict him. But I’m not holding my breath for either of those possibilities. It’s most likely going to be up to the voters to have long enough memories to remember this in 2019. Given that Rahm closed 50 schools in 2013 and people voted for him in 2015 – including the neighborhoods where he closed schools – I’m not hopeful.
Unfortunately if he leaves then he will get replaced with a Democrat. The Democratic Party has been shown to be a very corrupt party – especially in Chicago, one of the most corrupt cities in the country. If he leaves then he will be replaced by one of Rahm’s cronies or someone that’s approved by the morally corrupt DNC.
I agree. Firing his chief of police was not enough.
Interesting to me is that the incident happened about four months before the February, 2015 mayoral election, and at the time he was gearing up for a hard-fought campaign against the progressive “Chuy” Garcia. So hard fought, that there had to be a run-off election in April, 2015. Garcia entered the race in October 2014, after progressive Karen Lewis, head of the Chicago Teachers Union, who had announced her intention to run, became ill, dropped out, and encouraged Garcia to run. (And in July 2014, after Lewis set up an exploratory comittee for the mayoral run, a poll had shown her ahead of Emanuel, 45-36%.)
Now, I’m not saying that Rahm pressured the police directly to suppress the video. There have certainly been numerous incidents of police suppressing evidence that showed them doing something entirely wrong.
But still, it doesn’t look very good, does it?
Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown.
Adrian – I don’t disagree about the Democrats, especially in Chicago. But I hope you’re not trying to say that the Republicans would be any better?
I would hope not. While there have been corrupt Democrats in Chicago, not all of them were. It’s not just Chicago, though. Six Illinois governors in the last century have been charged with crimes, three Dems, three Reps. Although only four were convicted (three Dems, one Rep).
The current Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, has caused a stalemate in Illinois governmental spending because he has refused to come to terms with the Democratic State Legislature. So a lot of state obligations have been frozen.
Dienne,
I’ve got a lot to say about the Republican Party as well. There’s no way they should be in charge of Chicago. If there were torture cells in Chicago under democratic mayors along with executions then I don’t even want to know what republicans would implement – Bush, Cheney, and their cabinet allowed torture in Guantanamo as well as unknown sites around the world after all.
There needs to be another party in control, one that ensures that pensions aren’t cut (which is the constitutional thing to do, Mayor Rahm) and that children aren’t sent to charter schools, which have been shown to be unaccountable private entities. This for sure doesn’t include the GOP and I have a lot of doubts that Dems won’t be subservient to private unaccountable power or won’t challenge billionaires trying to take over public schools.
I agree, Adrian.
Adrian – we are in complete agreement. Can’t happen soon enough.
Rahm must go. He covered up the truth about LaQuan’s murder because he did not want to lose the primary to Chuy.
Read the details at Slate:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/02/laquan_mcdonald_shooting_a_recently_obtained_autopsy_report_on_the_dead.html
Hillary has already signaled she will not touch Rahm (He is an important rainmaker, with his connections to the Pritzkers, Ken Griffin and the other Chicago multi millionaires and hedge fund operators.)
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-12-05/clinton-voices-confidence-in-rahm-emanuel-as-chicago-mayor
These reports are horrifying. It’s time for all of us to speak out and demand the police in all communities act professionally, and if they don’t they be held accountable. That goes for the administration that hires them.