The turmoil inside Chicago police and administration finally reached the point of firings early today, as Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy was informed overnight of his termination. According to the Chicago Sun-Times:
Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy has been fired by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, sources said.
McCarthy was called into City Hall on Monday and when he left City Hall he still had a job. But overnight, the mayor called McCarthy to tell him he was out.
Headlines from the Laquan McDonald controversy, as well as the gang execution of Tyshawn Lee, had become too much, according to sources.
Emanuel remarked after the firing that “[McCarthy] has become an issue rather than dealing with the issue.” This firing and others on the horizon seemed inevitable after a series of strange decisions by the Chicago police department, prosecutors and Mayor’s office in the wake of cases of officer-involved killings of Laquan McDonald and Rekia Boyd. Several commentators have alleged a wide-reaching cover-up in the killing of Laquan McDonald, of which officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder last week.
The video of the incident clearly shows officer Van Dyke shooting multiple times into McDonald and contradicts most of the police account of the incident. However, Anita Alvarez, the Cook County state’s attorney, did not decide to file charges against Van Dyke until activists and independent journalists demanding the video of the incident were vindicated by a judge ordering the police department to release the video, 400 days after the incident. The delay in the video’s release extended through Emanuel’s campaign for re-election and has now been re-opened just days after Alvarez announced her bid for re-election. Van Dyke was retained as a paid member of the police force long after the shooting. During the press conference before the video, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel claimed that he hadn’t seen the video at all, a strange claim for such an important video that he claimed was brutal enough to incite violence.
More irregularities between police and prosecutors in Chicago have emerged as the case has gone on. Employees at a local Burger King testified in a grand jury that police and investigators erased security footage of the event, a testimony supported by a gap in video footage in the time period directly surrounding the killing. Chicago police have been under intense criticism and scrutiny since data emerged on police misconduct over the last 15 years at the department. Anita Alvarez’s office has been involved in several questionable decisions, from undercharging the police officer who killed Rekia Boyd and blowing the case to subpoenaing college students’ grades and emails for their work in freeing wrongfully convicted suspects. Commentary from a former employee of Alvarez’s details a widespread culture of prosecutorial and police collusion to enable and protect police violence.
More layers to this story will likely emerge and there will likely be more firings, but it appears as though the police, prosecutors, and mayor’s office have been operating together to keep the lid on. These issues also come after former Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett resigned and later pleaded guilty to corruption this year. What is happening in Chicago?