Hey it’s only been a day since the last terrible news about Chicago governance and police corruption, so here’s a little more. According to emails obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office knew about the 2014 video of police officer Jason Van Dyke shooting and killing Laquan McDonald two months after the shooting. According to NBC Chicago:
Emanuel spokeswoman Shannon Breymaier was part of an e-mail chain questioning whether the city could release video of the shooting. A top assistant in the corporation counsel’s office replied, “This is not a lawsuit as of now.”
Top press aides Kelly Quinn and Adam Collins were also part of an e-mail chain on Feb. 10, 2015, which included an article by freelance reporter Jamie Kalven which first reported the autopsy results and wrote: “the account…given by police cannot be true.”
McDonald family attorney Jeff Neslund warned the city in a letter to the Corporation Counsel's office on March 6th of this year: “This case will undoubtedly bring a microscope of national attention to the shooting” and “the City’s pattern, practice and procedures.”
Meanwhile, State Representative LaShawn Ford, a Chicago Democrat, filed a bill on Wednesday in Springfield to allow for the recall of Emanuel.
House Bill 4356 would set up the mechanism to initiate a recall election. If passed by both House and Senate and signed by the Governor, a recall election could occur if supported by at least two alderman and the signatures of 85,000 registered voters.
It’s worth noting (again) that Emanuel claimed he didn’t see the video until it was released by police on November 24. That’s a simply unbelievable claim given common sense—and now, this chain of email evidence. The claim matters because if untrue, it means the mayor of Chicago had likely seen (or at least knew a good deal about) the video showing a police officer shooting a teenager 16 times, and chose to stand by and do nothing and say nothing through election season. It fits with a long history of looking the other way on a pattern of corruption and bad policing.
Protesters outside of City Hall are calling for Emanuel’s ouster as more and more signs point toward either mayoral involvement or just plain negligence. There are only so many underlings left to fire.