Report: Chicago Police shoot teen 16 times

SHARE Report: Chicago Police shoot teen 16 times

Chicago Police officers shot Laquan McDonald 16 times, according to an autopsy report recently obtained by an organization pressuring the police department to clear up questions about the youth’s death.

Jamie Kalven, of the “Invisible Institute,” a Chicago-based journalistic production company, and Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago professor, have challenged the police version of how the 17-year-old McDonald ended up dead.

While national attention was focused on the Michael Brown police-involved shooting case in Ferguson, Mo., and the Eric Garner police chokehold death in New York, few people seemed to care about what happened to McDonald.

McDonald allegedly had a knife and was slashing car tires when police encountered him on the night of Oct. 20, 2014.

Pat Camden, a spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police, who routinely turns up at the scene to speak to reporters after police shootings, described McDonald as “having a strange gaze about him.”  He told reporters police officers used a squad car to try to box McDonald in against a fence near 41st and Pulaski

“An officer shot him in the chest when he refused to comply with orders to drop the knife and continued to approach the officers,” Camden told a Chicago Sun-Times reporter.

But the autopsy report, which the “Invisible Institute” obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, appears to suggest McDonald wasn’t just shot in the chest. His body was riddled with bullets.

According to the autopsy, McDonald had gunshot wounds to the left scalp, neck, left chest, right chest, left elbow, right upper arm, left forearm, right upper leg, left upper back, left elbow, posterior right upper arm, right arm, right forearm, right hand, right lower back, right upper leg.

“How could an incident that began with the responding officers assessing the situation and deciding they needed a Taser end a few minutes later with 16 bullets ripping through Laquan McDonald’s body from different directions?” asked Kalven in a lengthy article posted on Slate.com.

“Did more than one officer fire? Or did a single officer empty a full magazine?” he asked.

As with all police-involved shootings, this incident is being reviewed by the Independent Police Review Authority.

Unfortunately, it usually takes a year to 18 months for that agency to investigate a police-involved shooting. During that long delay, reporters typically move to other topics

But Kalven and Futterman, who founded the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project at the University of Chicago’s Mandel Clinic, are not going away.

In December, the pair called on the Chicago Police Department to release video footage that was recorded by a dashboard camera that was supposed to be on as officers pursued McDonald.

Kalven also was a plaintiff in a landmark lawsuit that resulted in police misconduct files being opened to the public.

The decision of whether to release the video ultimately rests with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Kalven noted, pointing out the mayor’s re-election bid.

It would be irresponsible to make assumptions about how police handled this incident.

But it is ridiculous that it takes so long to sort out a police-involved shooting, particularly when a 17-year-old is shot 16 times.

On Monday, a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department said it would be “inappropriate” for the police to comment on this “ongoing” investigation.

But last November, as police officers in Ferguson struggled to keep street demonstrations peaceful, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said he had instructed his supervisors to keep the public in the loop following high-profile incidents.

“In the absence of information, there is a vacuum that can get filled with rumor, innuendo and outright lies,” he said.

How the police department handles this latest revelation about McDonald’s death will test those words.

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