The Wall Street Journal published a biting editorial today, calling on the Justice Department to investigate Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s role in the suppression of the video of the police shooting of Laquan McDonald. The shooting, almost a year ago, was taped by police video cameras but the city refused to release the video until ordered to do so by a judge. The title of the editorial: “The Chicago Fire.” Protestors will not be ameliorated by a half-hearted investigation that protects the mayor from scrutiny.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said last week that the Justice Department will investigate whether Chicago police “engaged in a pattern or practice of violation of the Constitution or federal law.” We hope Justice will also investigate whether Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and city officials prevented the release of a videotape of the shooting for political reasons.
In October 2014 officer Jason Van Dyke shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald multiple times. Though a police car’s dashcam recorded the confrontation, the videotape was kept from public view until a judge ordered its release in a lawsuit. City officials, who had likely seen the video, echoed the police line of self-defense that now seems suspect.
The episode has roiled Chicago. On Wednesday an emotional Mayor Emanuel tried to defuse the tension by issuing a public apology and acknowledging the problems with a police force that embraces a culture of silence. “I should have given voice to the public’s growing suspicions, distrust and anger,” Mr. Emanuel said. “My voice is supposed to be their voice.” Protesters demanded his resignation.
According to the Better Government Association, the city has spent more than $521 million over 10 years defending and settling excessive-force lawsuits against the Police Department. Between 2010 and 2014 the police killed 70 people, the most of any big city. Since 2007 the city’s Independent Police Review Authority has investigated almost 400 shootings and categorized only one as unjustified….
In DNAInfo Chicago, columnist Mark Konkol reported last week that Mr. Emanuel’s corporation counsel Stephen Patton blocked police reforms pushed by former police chief Garry McCarthy, whom Mr. Emanuel appointed in 2011. Mr. McCarthy wanted to give the police chief the power to discipline or fire officers accused of misconduct or of keeping a “code of silence” and to make misconduct investigations more transparent….
While Justice investigates the cops, the answers about the role of City Hall are most likely to come from the investigation by the U.S. Attorney, who has been looking into the case since not long after the shooting. The failure to release a video for political reasons may not be a crime, but City Hall’s complicity in any cover-up will leave lasting scars. Mr. Emanuel will have to answer for the consequences.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
While the WSJ may be correct here, I wonder what their reaction would be if the mayor were Republican. It would probably be that they didn’t shoot him enough or that they didn’t torture him before they executed him.
Even the irrelevant and demagogic Jonah Goldberg called for the investigation of Rahm. No doubt he would be on damage control for the administration if it were Republican, and he would also wanted them to waterboard Laquan before executing him.
The Wall Street Journal and the far right is no friend to the the working class, so nothing to see here.
LikeLike
Adrian, you are right about that. The WSJ thinks that Rahm is a liberal. Far from it. A liberal would not have closed 50 public schools in one day.
LikeLike
Rahm is about as liberal as Peking duck is lasagna . . .
LikeLike
Hard not to see this as a simple case of WSJ attacking Hillary Clinton for Benghazi rather than for, say, her vote on Iraq, her vote on predatory credit card laws, her vote on. . .
LikeLike
Diane et al., —
I am sure that Murdock’s editorial board is acting out of the noblest motives to help Chicago’s under-privileged classes. The WSJ has done so lo those many times before and has only the purest intentions at heart!! I am also waiting for Santa to start advocating taxing hedge fund managers to help the same Chicago citizens – with equal purity of motive.
John V. Knapp
6201 Glenbrook Circle,
Madison 53711
608 345-0509
LikeLike
Since many of Rahm’s biggest supporters are conservatives, it is a big deal when his base begins to jump ship. He has hardly been a friend of the working classes. We don’t even have to mention his support for charters and his dismantling of public schools.
LikeLike
Hopefully, Rahm will be hung with his own rope . . .
LikeLike
Punishing Rahm will not solve the underlying problem that caused the shooting—because people don’t seem to be talking about it.
Namely, the whole thing wouldn’t have happened if the police were more competent. It’s not their fault, though, but of those who think, it’s enough to train police for a few months before they are put on the street. They only get a TFA-like training.
LikeLike
I would not take ANY advice from the Wall Street Journal. Plus if we want to see the big picture, we need to go back to the Daley Jr. Administration. Then and only then can we see how Chicago got to the place it is at now with some help from Rahm. It did not begin with the current mayor. I say that since I am a former CPS special education teacher that saw a great deal when I taught.
LikeLike
I take back SOME of my talk about the Wall Street Journal since it was taken over by Rupert Murdoch.
As someone above said, how would they have react ed if Rahm were a Republican.
Good question.
LikeLike
One might also look at this as an indirect swipe at Obama, who is not popular with the WSJ crowd. If this had happened under a Bush crony somewhere, would Murdoch’s mouthpiece be calling for such a comprehensive investigation?
LikeLike
“If this had happened under a Bush crony somewhere, would Murdoch’s mouthpiece be calling for such a comprehensive investigation?”
Yes, because they want to redirect the attention from the underlying problem: insufficient police training. Conservatives always want to increase the police and the military, but they never talk about the quality of the training.
LikeLike