What did top city lawyer tell aldermen about $5M settlement for McDonald family?

African-American aldermen who approved a $5 million settlement to the family of Laquan McDonald — before seeing the video of the shooting and before a lawsuit had even been filed — have been running for political cover by saying they were “misled.”

They have accused Corporation Counsel Stephen Patton of doing the misleading by claiming that a dashcam video that Mayor Rahm Emanuel kept under wraps until Nov. 24, when a judge ordered the city to release it, “showed some gray area.”

When they finally saw the video, aldermen viewed it as rather black and white. It shows Officer Jason Van Dyke pumping 16 rounds into McDonald’s body while the knife-wielding teen was walking away from the officer, who is now charged with first-degree murder. Many of the shots hit McDonald while he was already on the ground.

But a transcript of Patton’s testimony before the City Council’s Finance Committee on April 13, the day the settlement was approved, raises serious questions about the aldermen’s claims that they were misled.

In painstaking detail, Patton described how Officer Jason Van Dyke, whom Patton did not identify by name on that day, fired 16 shots into McDonald’s body on October 20, 2014, as five other responding officers exercised restraint.

It all started when a man called 911 to report that a knife-wielding offender had threatened him and was attempting to break into vehicles in an Archer Heights trucking yard at 41st and Kildare.

“What preceded the shooting is disputed between the plaintiffs in this case and the shooting officer. The shooting officer contends, as I understand it, that Mr. McDonald was moving toward him. He was in fear of his life. Mr. McDonald was only one car width, you know, one lane away on Pulaski. Ten, 15 feet,” Patton said on that day.

“The plaintiffs contend very vehemently that Mr. McDonald had been walking away from the police and was continuing to walk away from the police. And they contend that the videotape supports their version of the events,” he said.

Patton went on to explain to incredulous aldermen why the $5 million settlement was in the “best interests” of Chicago taxpayers after the family initially demanded $16 million.

“First, attorneys for the estate will argue that Mr. McDonald did not pose any immediate threat of death or great bodily harm to [Van Dyke] and that, instead, McDonald, as I mentioned before, was walking away from the police when he was shot. And they will argue that the videotape supports their version of events,” the corporation counsel said.

“The estate or plaintiffs will also argue that their position that deadly force was not justified is demonstrated by the conduct of the other officers at the scene, none of whom fired their weapon at McDonald,” he said.

Patton described the shooting as a “unique case.” The first two officers to arrive on the scene followed McDonald for “some number of blocks” and “never saw fit” to discharge their weapons, he said. Neither did Van Dyke’s partner, who was “right beside him when both officers exited the vehicle with guns drawn.”

“So, the plaintiffs will contend, if this matter were not resolved, that the unreasonableness of [Van Dyke’s] conduct is shown by the restraint that was shown by the other five officers, none of whom discharged their weapons,” the corporation counsel said.

“Finally, the plaintiffs will point to the fact that there were no pedestrians, automobiles, other folks who were near McDonald at the time he was shot and as to which he might have posed an imminent danger. That’s why we think the settlement makes sense on the issue of liability.”

Rather than “misleading” aldermen, Patton played it right down the middle. The only thing he did not tell aldermen is that he had seen the tape himself and could confirm the McDonald family’s version.

And the transcript shows that not a single aldermen asked the corporation counsel whether he had seen the dashboard camera video and, if so, what it showed.

When West Side Ald. Jason Ervin (29th) asked whether any of the officers had been disciplined, Patton reiterated the McDonald case was “under active current investigation by both federal and state law enforcement authorities.”

Ervin then asked Patton to give his “professional opinion” on whether Van Dyke had acted “outside the scope of employment,” thereby excusing the taxpayers from liability for the officer’s actions.

“It’s two very different issues. Scope of employment [is] very broadly interpreted by the courts and particularly [by] the 7th Circuit [Court of Appeals]. We have had that come up before,” Patton said.

“Matters that are plainly ones that the city does not condone — in some infamous cases that are absolutely reprehensible because the policeman involved was still acting with force of law and as a policeman — is within scope of authority.”

Ald. Marge Laurino (39th) asked whether Chicago Police officers “all carry” Tasers and, if they do, why officers tailing McDonald had to request a Taser.

Patton replied that “a number of” officers carry them, but the first two officers on the scene that night “did not have a Taser.”

Laurino then asked what would turn out to be a prescient question about what is now a videotape played around the world.

“That was a videotape from one of the officers? Is that correct?” she asked.

“Yes, it was a dash camera video,” the corporation counsel said.

When Laurino asked how many officers are “equipped with videotape,” Patton said he would “get back to the chair on how many of our squad cars or patrols have dashboard video cameras.”

“I suspect that is going to change the outcome of a number of cases for use because we are videotaping, correct?” Laurino said.

Patton replied, “I don’t think that this is a case that [will set a precedent]. Each one of these … we have to look at on their own.”

Laurino replied, “But this was one piece of the puzzle that brought us to this conclusion, correct?

Patton countered, “It is. It was an important piece of the evidence here. Not the only evidence that we considered. And I’m sure the criminal, you know, investigating authorities are considering. But it’s one piece.”

Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) did not attend the Finance Committee meeting when the settlement was approved. But after reading the transcript, she told MSNBC last week that aldermen had been led astray.

“There was language to the effect that Laquan ‘lunged’ at the police officer. When we now see the video, that was not the case,” she said.

Ald. Howard Brookins (21st), former chairman of the City Council’s Black Caucus, made a similar statement.

“We were led to believe there was something fuzzy or something questionable that could be interpreted a different way than it was,” Brookins said then.

“We were misled. We were misled in terms of whether or not this particular tape showed some gray area where it needed to be investigated for all this period of time. It appears to everybody who has seen this tape … that it did not and should not have taken a full year to determine what happened when all of the facts were known and it was a clear video to show it.”