RSN: The Political Revolution Has Just Begun, Tamir Rice and Laquan McDonald Avenged at the Ballot Box

Reader Supported News | 18 March 16

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Scott Galindez | The Political Revolution Has Just Begun 
 
Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News 
Galindez writes: "It won't be easy. However it is wrong to say Bernie Sanders is finished. We hear the pundits saying that Sanders would need landslide victories to catch up. That is a stretch. He would need big wins, but the reality is better for Bernie than the establishment media will admit." 
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Tamir Rice and Laquan McDonald Avenged at the Ballot Box 
Goldie Taylor, The Daily Beast 
Taylor writes: "Their names never appeared on a ballot, but two black boys dashed the re-election hopes of two district attorneys and continue to influence state contests in the Democratic presidential primary - from their graves." 
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Doctors Who Get Company Cash Tend to Prescribe More Brand-Name Meds 
Charles Ornstein, Ryann Grochowski Jones and Mike Tigas, ProPublica 
Excerpt: "Doctors have long disputed that the payments they receive from pharmaceutical companies have any relationship to how they prescribe drugs. There's been little evidence to settle the matter - until now." 
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To Gay Groups, St. Patrick's Parade Ends an Era of Exclusion 
Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press 
Peltz writers: "The nation's largest St. Patrick's Day parade kicked off Thursday in New York City, and for the first time in decades, gay activists are not decrying it as an exercise in exclusion." 
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Black Lives Matter Gets Behind Apple in Encryption Fight 
Cory Bennett, The Hill 
"The Black Lives Matter movement is lining up behind Apple in its fight with the FBI. In recent weeks, voices in the movement and civil rights activists such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson have met with Apple officials and filed briefs on behalf of the company, which is resisting a court order to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters." 
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'They Want to Silence Us': Honduran Journalist Handed 10 Years 
teleSUR 
Excerpt: "As international alarm around Honduras grows over the country's human rights crisis, the Honduran journalist who broke major stories of government corruption last year, David Romero Ellner, has been handed down a 10 year sentence for six counts of libel and defamation in yet another blow to freedom of expression in one of the most dangerous countries for journalists in Latin America." 
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SeaWorld to End Controversial Killer Whale Breeding Program 
Katie Valentine, ThinkProgress 
Valentine writes: "SeaWorld will soon be minus some black-and-white, multi-ton, and highly controversial mascots. The company announced Thursday that it will be ending its captive breeding program for orca whales - meaning that the orca whales currently living at the theme park's three U.S. locations will be the last group to live at SeaWorld." 
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RSN: Matt Taibbi | How the 'New York Times' Sandbagged Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter Victory as Chicago's Top Prosecutor Ousted

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Matt Taibbi | How the 'New York Times' Sandbagged Bernie Sanders 

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Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
Taibbi writes: "If you're Sanders, you now know what's going to shake loose when reporting about you goes upstairs to the Times editors."
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Super Tuesday 3: Big Wins for Trump and Clinton, Rubio Drops Out
Dan Balz, The Washington Post
Balz writes: "It was a good night for Donald Trump and an even better night for Hillary Clinton."
READ MORE

'I've Made My Decision' on Supreme Court Nominee, President Obama Says
Bill Chappell, NPR
Chappell writes: "President Obama will announce his choice of a successor to late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, saying in an email Wednesday, 'I've made my decision: Today, I will announce the person I believe is eminently qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.'"
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Black Lives Matter Victory as Chicago's Top Prosecutor Ousted
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Anita Alvarez waited an entire year before convicting the killer of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, attracting widespread condemnation from anti-police brutality and civil rights groups. Chicago decided it was high time for County State Attorney Anita Alvarez to leave office Tuesday."
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Anonymous Declares 'Total War' on Donald Trump
Cory Bennett, The Hill
Bennett writes: "The hacking group Anonymous is urging its followers to launch a barrage of cyberattacks on April 1 to take down Donald Trump's websites and expose the 'appalling' GOP presidential candidate."
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In the Syrian Labyrinth: The Impasse of International Law
James Luchte, teleSUR
Luchte writes: "As hundreds of thousands have been killed, injured or displaced, as the country lies in ruins, the United Nations has once again been exposed as unable to fulfill its stated mandate to protect the sovereignty of independent nations."
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GMOs, Development and the Politics of Unhappiness
Colin Todhunter, CounterPunch
Todhunter writes: "Modern state-corporate capitalism is stripping the environment bare through unsustainable levels of consumption. It is legitimised by a deceitful ideology that attempts to justify and sell a system which by its very nature is designed to benefit a minority at the expense of the majority."
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RSN: Tarantino: I 'Utterly Reject' Argument That Only Some Cops Are Bad

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FOCUS | Tarantino: I 'Utterly Reject' Argument That Only Some Cops Are Bad

TruthVoice
Excerpt: "Quentin Tarantino continues to stand by anti-police comments he made earlier this fall in a new interview, saying he 'completely rejects' the 'bad apples' argument that only a small number of police officers behave inappropriately on the job."
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uentin Tarantino continues to stand by anti-police comments he made earlier this fall in a new interview, saying he “completely rejects” the “bad apples” argument that only a small number of police officers behave inappropriately on the job.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly on Monday (and in an interview with Howard Stern last week), the Hateful Eight director put the blame for some instances of police brutality on the “institutional racism” of the profession.

“I completely and utterly reject the bad apples argument,” the director told EW. “Chicago just got caught with their pants down in a way that can’t be denied. But I completely and utterly reject the ‘few bad apples’ argument. Yeah, the guy who shot [Laquan McDonald] is a bad apple. But so are the other eight or nine cops that were there that said nothing, did nothing, let a lie stand for an entire year.”

“And the chief of police, is he a bad apple?” Tarantino continued. “I think he is. Is [Chicago Mayor] Rahm Emanuel a bad apple? I think he is. They’re all bad apples. That just shows that that’s a bulls*** argument. It’s about institutional racism. It’s about institutional cover-ups that are about protecting the force as opposed to the citizens.”

Tarantino created a firestorm of controversy in October when he participated in an anti-police brutality rally in New York City, where he said: “I am a human being with a conscience. And when I see murder, I cannot stand by, and I have to call the murdered the murdered and I have the call the murderers the murderers.”

Tarantino’s comments sparked calls for a boycott of the director’s upcoming Hateful Eightfrom some of the largest police associations in the country, including the NYPD, LAPD, the Fraternal Order of Police, and the National Association of Police Organizations.

Last month, Fraternal Order of Police executive director said his group’s 300,000 members had an economically damaging “surprise” planned for Tarantino before the Christmas Day release of his film. But the director told EW he only had “natural human trepidation” before the New York and Los Angeles premiers of Hateful Eight, and that, rather than frighten him, the police association’s threats proved his point.

“As far as getting my point across, the cops response to it has made my point for me in so many ways,” he said. “They look really bad. Civil servants, even rhetorically, shouldn’t be threatening private citizens. They sounded like bad guys in an ’80s action movie.”

The Hateful Eight opens this week in select theaters before opening wide on New Year’s Day.Variety reports that a screener of the film intended for Academy voters has leaked on the Internet and had already been illegally downloaded more than 500,000 times in a 24-hour period.

 
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34269-focus-tarantino-i-utterly-reject-argument-that-only-some-cops-are-bad

rsn: A Corruption Beyond Chicago's Top Cop

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FOCUS: Ta-Nehisi Coates | A Corruption Beyond Chicago's Top Cop 
 
Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic 
Coates writes: "So grand is the scale of Chicago's police brutality that the city has, over the past 10 years, paid out a half-billion dollars in settlement money to victims." 
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s David notes, Garry McCarthy, superintendent of the Chicago Police Department is out. The bungled investigation of the killing of LaQuan McDonald made his position untenable:

Immediately after the shooting last October, a Chicago police union spokesman said that McDonald had lunged at officers before he was killed. And in an official statement the next day, Chicago police said McDonald "refused to comply with orders to drop the knife and continued to approach the officers." The video, however, showed McDonald walking down the street, away from officers as Van Dyke opened fire.

With that video airing on news telecasts across the country and online around the world, McCarthy and Emanuel's one-bad-apple narrative of Van Dyke's actions didn't square with Chicago's sordid police history that once again was back in the national spotlight. Serving as the backdrop: decades' worth of police torture and wrongful conviction cases, corruption and ineffectual oversight in shootings and other excessive force actions. Time and again, the department had quickly cleared officers of allegations, only to have civil litigation later reveal video and other evidence that painted a much darker picture of police misconduct.

That last part is crucial. Conor has a good rundown on how deep the problems in the CPD run. You can add to that rundown the killing of Rekia Boyd, the maintenance of black sites, and a heritage of torture. So grand is the scale of Chicago’s police brutality that the city has, over the past 10 years, paid out a half-billion dollars in settlement money to victims:

The half-billion spent on these cases could have built five state-of-the-art high schools and more than 30 libraries, repaved 500 miles of arterial streets, or paid off a big chunk of the pension bill.

What this suggests is that while it’s good that McCarthy resigned, an accountability that ends with him is the minimum possible. Many people charged with the safety of Chicago’s citizens, from actual officers on the scene up to the mayor, were in position to know that this was murder. That it took a year to reach that determination is evidence of something beyond “one bad cop,” something even beyond “one bad superintendent.”

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/33849-focus-a-corruption-beyond-chicagos-top-cop

RSN: Shoot the Kid 16 Times

In the upper left hand corner of this page is a SEARCH feature. 
Much has been written about the Chicago Police Department, Homan Square and police killings of BLACKS.

Ignorance of what has transpired in Chicago and elsewhere is simply no excuse. 
Injustice has created the SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE for which we all pay. 



In many communities, members of the Police Force live locally, know their communities and take pride in their jobs, conducting themselves professionally. 

In Chicago, we know that Chicago Police operated a BLACK HOLE [Homan Square] where they tortured BLACKS into false confessions, inter alia.  

RSN: Chicago Cop Beat Wife in Homan Square 'Black Site,' Document Shows

RSN: Republicans Deserve Credit for Creating a Budget This Cruel, Bill Gates' "Charity" Org Holds $1.4 Billion in Fossil Fuel Investments

RSN: "Irresponsible & Reckless": Environmentalists Decry Obama's Arctic Drilling Approval, Homan Square Detainee: I Was Sexually Abused by Police at Chicago 'Black Site',

"Collective Psychopathology" And US Police State Methods 
By Jon V Kofas

http://www.countercurrents.org/kofas040315.htm

In February 2015, The Guardian published a couple of new stories about the connection between the Chicago police department “black site” at Homan Square and the Guantanamo prison where terror suspects have been kept as political prisoners without ever been charged. Neither the national media in the US nor the Chicago media organizations, including African-American, have pursued this story. Even after the British paper brought these issues to the attention of the public, the mainstream media in Chicago and across the US are ignoring the revelations, a subject in itself revealing about the role of the US media in a democratic society where human rights and civil rights violations occur

The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden 'black site' --Secret interrogation facility reveals aspects of war on terror in US | 24 Feb 2015 | The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site. The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago's west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights. Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include: Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases. Beating by police, resulting in head wounds. Shackling for prolonged periods. Denying attorneys access to the "secure" facility. Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15

FOUND HERE: 

Net Neutrality: Look whose side Republicans are on! Not yours! CLG: Israel cuts off electricity to thousands of West Bank Palestinians

The Disappeared: Chicago Police Detain Americans at Abuse-Laden 'Black Site' 
Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian 
Ackerman writes: "The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site." 
READ MORE

FOUND HERE:
RSN: Science's Embarrassing Fossil Fuel Problems, Renewable Energy Skyrocketing, From Solar Mosques to Wave-Powered Naval Bases

The tapes of a recent shooting were erased. 
Witness accounts differ from Police statements and autopsy results contradict Police accounts. 




PLEASE NOTICE HOW WHITE THE CHICAGO POLICE FORCE IS. 

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FOCUS: Charles Pierce | Shoot the Kid 16 Times

Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "If you're wondering what went through the mind of Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke as he emptied his service piece into Laquan McDonald a year ago, it was confidence. The confidence that comes with being licensed to carry a gun as a defense against your fellow citizens."
READ MORE

Most of the time, when you're a white cop, you shoot the kid and nothing happens. Will that finally change?

hoot the kid.

Shoot the kid 16 times.

Shoot the kid 16 times, mostly when he's already down.

Shoot the kid 16 times.

Make the body bounce.

Shoot the kid 16 times.

Shoot the kid 16 times and know that your buddies have your back.

Shoot the kid 16 times.

Shoot the kid 16 times and know that your buddies will grab the tapes.

Shoot the kid 16 times.

Shoot the kid 16 times and know that your buddies will bully the witnesses.

Shoot the kid 16 times.

Shoot the kid 16 times and know that the city will settle quietly.

Shoot the kid 16 times.

Shoot the kid 16 times and know that the city will bury the case.

Shoot the kid 16 times and know that nobody ever will know that you did.

Shoot the kid.

Shoot the kid 16 times.

If you're wondering what went through the mind of Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke as he emptied his service piece into Laquan McDonald a year ago, it was confidence. The confidence that comes with being licensed to carry a gun as a defense against your fellow citizens. The confidence that comes with the knowledge that almost every powerful institution in your city will come to your aid if every powerless individual in the city is outraged by what you've done. The confidence that comes with knowing that the tapes will always be taken care of, the autopsy buried, and the official story spread far and wide before the truth ever is known, assuming that it ever is. The confidence that comes with being a white police officer in a major city in a terrified country. That was the spirit in which Jason Van Dyke allegedly fired his last rounds into what soon became the dead body of Laquan McDonald.

But the rules changed on Van Dyke. They changed in Ferguson, and on Staten Island, and in Tulsa, and, most recently, in Minneapolis. Dogged local reporting dug out the autopsy report, which showed that Laquan McDonald had taken 16 bullets. Dogged local reporting, and an overwhelming public outcry, forced the release on Tuesday of the dashcam video. The videotape was proof enough. Jason Van Dyke stands charged with first-degree murder in the death of Laquan McDonald, whom he shot 16 times.

It's hard to know whether this story will end well or not. Truth be told, the first-degree murder charge may be very hard to sustain in this case against a Chicago police officer. At least one juror likely will have imbibed the line that Van Dyke's life was endangered by McDonald because that juror has been fed a steady diet of black criminality on the news, on the radio, and by his favorite television pundits. This is not an easy prosecution, but the fact that it is being brought at all is something of a small miracle. That is, of course, very easy for me to say. I am not the threat, walking down the street with my Skittles and my iced tea. I am not the threat, peddling my loosies on the sidewalk. I am not the threat, acting bizarrely outside the Burger King. I am not the threat.

Shoot the kid.

Shoot the kid 16 times.

Shoot the kid 16 times, and see what happens next.


 http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/33773-focus-shoot-the-kid-16-times

Chicago cops killed 19 males last year. RSN

The Other Laquan McDonalds: More Questionable Killings by Chicago Police 
Justin Glawe, The Daily Beast 
Glawe writes: "Chicago cops killed 19 males last year. Autopsies, police statements, and media reports for several of those killings do not add up." 
READ MORE

Chicago cops killed 19 males last year. Autopsies, police statements, and media reports for several of those killings do not add up.

Laquan McDonald was one of 19 men killed by the Chicago Police Department last year. As national media turns its attention to the city following the release of video showing McDonald being killed in what prosecutors say was an act of first-degree murder by Officer Jason Van Dyke, the 18 other homicides will go uncovered.

For the past year The Daily Beast has been investigating killings by Chicago police to determine whether the police and press versions of events line up with autopsy reports; whether the Independent Police Review Authority has completed its investigations into the deaths; whether witnesses have spoken to police and IPRA investigators. Simply put: We want to know if there are more Laquan McDonalds.

n July 5, 2014, not far from the intersection of 87th and Morgan on Chicago's South Side, Warren Robinson hid under a car. Maybe he was uncooperative, as police have said. Maybe he was defiant, or aggressive, or pissed off or any number of emotions that can course through the mind of a 16-year-old boy. Or maybe he was just scared, because the police were about to pump 17 bullets into his 5-foot-9, 135-pound frame.

Whatever the case, police say they recovered a .38-caliber semi-automatic pistol from Robinson. The cops there had guns too, and they used them to shoot Robinson as he climbed out from underneath the car, apparently refusing to drop his piece.

Robinson is the only person shot by Chicago police more times than McDonald was last year. In all, it took 109 Chicago police bullets to kill McDonald, Robinson, and the other 17 men, a Daily Beast review of autopsy reports found.

Most of those killings were not as egregious as McDonald's, but many exist in a state of evidentiary purgatory: Whether they are justified or not is nearly impossible to tell because we were not there. For activists like Black Lives Matter, virtually all were wrong and unnecessary. For police, virtually all were right and required to uphold law and order.

The truth lies somewhere in between.

In order to determine whether or not officers were justified in those killings, The Daily Beast compared police versions of events as reported by the press to autopsy reports provided through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, as well as interviews with eyewitnesses and residents of neighborhoods where the shootings took place.

In six killings, it is difficult or outright impossible to determine if police were justified in using lethal force. This is thanks to still-pending Independent Police Review Authority investigations and contradictory versions of events from eyewitnesses. In at least one case, the family of a man killed by Chicago police has sued the department and the city over their loved one's death.

Lorenzo Davis, a 23-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department who went on to work for the IPRA before he was fired, has said at least three fatal shootings by police he investigated were covered up by officials. Davis told The Daily Beast last week that the investigations into those shootings have not been finalized, but when they are, he is ready to talk.

Warren Robinson's death warranted more coverage in local media, but considering the mayhem that enveloped the city's South and West sides that weekend—82 shot and 14 killed—the incident got a bit lost. Afterall, Robinson was the second of two teens killed by police over the holiday weekend—Pedro Rios, 14, died when he allegedly refused to drop what was described by Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden as a "Dirty Harry" gun. (Camden said Laquan McDonald "lunged" at officers, which was proven false by dashcam video.) Rios's death appears to have been justified—as unsettling as it may be—but a number of factors may require another look at Robinson's death.

First, there is the autopsy report, which provides in precise medical detail exactly how those 17 Chicago police bullets entered Robinson's body. The autopsy begins the same way as Laquan McDonald's and many others do:

"The body is that of a well-developed, well-nourished black male…"

Sometimes there is unique identifying information, like the tattoo on Robinson's chest that read "God's Child." Oftentimes, there are quite a few bullet holes.

Robinson had 17 bullet holes. Starting with a graze wound on top of the head, police worked their way down Robinson's body with their shots, all of which traveled from back to front:

9.5 inches below the top of the head, 10 inches below, 10.5, and 11.5 inches below. The next gunshot wounds are presented 14, 15.5, 19, 20, 20.5, 21.5, and 23 inches below the top of his head.

That was just his back.

In Robinson's right arm, with all bullets but one traveling back to front, the teen was struck thrice in his forearm, twice in his right shoulder, and once in the back of his hand.

"He was told multiple times—he was told 'Drop the gun, drop the gun.' He is coming out from under the car with the gun in hand. At that point he [is] shot," cop union spokesman Camden said at the time. "He is told again after he is shot to drop the gun and he refuses to do so, still has his finger on the trigger. The officers again defend themselves."

Especially after Laquan McDonald, there is no reason to believe anything Camden says. Period.

It is Camden's job to support the officers he represents in the police union. In virtually every story about someone being shot or killed by the police, Camden gives the official but preliminary version of events. He performed this same task in his previous occupation as spokesman for the Chicago Police Department.

"It gives them deniability," said Jamie Kalven of the Invisible Institute. It was Kalven who broke the McDonald story when sources told him to look into the teen's death. His initial story and the lawsuit later filed by independent journalist Brandon Smith helped bring what is now being called a murder to light.

Camden's remarks weren't the only ones available about Robinson's death though. At a July 7 press conference, Superintendent Garry McCarthy also described each of the five police shootings from that weekend to reporters.

Police had "a very specific description of the offender," McCarthy said of Robinson. The teen was alleged to have been firing shots or carrying a handgun, depending on which version of events—McCarthy's or Camden's—you choose.

"We have four civilian witnesses in this case, one of which was the 911 caller who actually took a picture of [Robinson] standing on the corner with these firearms, and sent it to us after this event happened," McCarthy said. "This young man was pursued for quite some time. He eventually hid underneath a vehicle, pointing the weapon at officers on numerous occasions, was shot by the officers and subsequently expired."

Robinson fit the description of "someone who had been firing shots in the area," Camden and unnamed police sources had reported to the media. Robinson "tried to blend in at a party [...] but left and jumped a fence when people at the party started to complain," those officials added to the official version of events preceding Robinson's death.

So which was it then? Robinson was brandishing a gun or firing it? There was no mention of shots fired in McCarthy's July 7 description of Robinson's demise, and no mention of a party. The only real consistency between McCarthy and Camden's versions of events is that Robinson died at the end, and that police recovered a handgun.

More than a year later, the IPRA investigation into Robinson's death has not been completed. Questions about where police traced the gun to and other details about the killing remain unknown because the Chicago Police Department denied my FOIA request for reports associated with incident on the grounds that Robinson was a minor.

While it's true that reports involving minors are typically exempt from FOIA requests, Illinois law makes no such distinction when it comes to the dead.

"When the victim of a crime is deceased, the personal privacy interest of the victim in the disclosure of his or her identity ceases to exist," Illinois statute states.

Among the 2014 Chicago police killings that appear to be justified is the death of Joe Huff, an 86-year-old black man who allegedly threatened his neighbor, an off-duty cop, and fired at the officer with a shotgun, according to media reports. The officer fired back, killing Huff and wounding his 90-year-old wife. The altercation was the result of a long-running dispute between Huff and the officer, and the IPRA determined the shooting was justified.

Comparisons of autopsy reports and news stories for Huff, Robinson, McDonald, and the 16 others killed last year by Chicago police, show just how complex IPRA—and in the case of McDonald federal and county—investigations can be. As with any murder, shooting and crimes both violent and petty in nature, witnesses clam up, disappear, or refuse to cooperate. In one case, the mother of a man killed by police never picked up the phone when IPRA investigators repeatedly tried to contact her.

In others, witnesses' initial testimony was contradicted by changing statements. There is one general rule of thumb, though, when it comes to IPRA investigations: The more controversial the killing, the longer the agency takes. That's why the results of investigations into the deaths of Robinson and McDonald have yet to be released.

That also may be why the agency has yet to release its findings on the killing of Terrence Gilbert.

The last man who died at the hands of the Chicago Police Department in 2014, Gilbert passed away on Christmas night. Gilbert, 25, was allegedly suicidal and manic when he lunged multiple times at officers with a knife, like McDonald allegedly did, striking one in a bulletproof vest.

At the time of his death, unnamed police sources said Gilbert was shot twice in the torso. Gilbert's autopsy report, like McDonald's, tells a different story.

Terrence Gilbert was only shot once in the torso, according to his autopsy report from the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office. The other two gunshot wounds he suffered were to the right wrist and, most devastatingly, to the front of his skull.

That bullet pierced the left frontal lobe of Gilbert's brain before disintegrating; shrapnel was recovered from the right side of his neck.

The police department denied an FOIA request asking for report numbers associated with Gilbert. In its denial, the department cited language in the act that "does not require a public body to interpret or advise requesters as to the meaning or significance of public records."

But no such "meaning or significance" was requested. The Daily Beast simply requested the numbers of reports that contained Gilbert's name in order to ensure that none were missing if and when Chicago police provided documents related to him.

No such documents were ever provided.

For months following the Aug. 20 death of his son, Desean, last year, Reggie Pittman had a simple and morbid question: "How many times did they shoot him?"

It wasn't until this May that I was able to answer that question for Reggie. He lives in Indiana and without the means to get to Chicago and pay the $50 required for a copy of his son's autopsy report. I obtained it for him through an FOIA request, then called him and laid out each of Desean's 10 gunshot wounds.

While Desean's killing by police was almost surely legally justified (he was standing over Amelio Johnson, who police say Desean had just shot with the gun allegedly his hand), that doesn't take away the pain Reggie continues to feel.

Not a week goes by that the father doesn't post some memory of his 20-year-old son on Facebook. The gunshot wounds in Desean's body leave a lifetime wound in Reggie's heart.

"Your birthday was the worst day for me," Reggie wrote on Oct. 30. "I cried all day, didn't want to talk to anyone, contemplated suicide, and even blamed myself for your death. But a few days later you came to me in my dream telling me the only way I can move on is if I allow my heart to heal."

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/33727-the-other-laquan-mcdonalds-more-questionable-killings-by-chicago-police

Chicago's Cover Up of Police Execution! Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is WRONG!

Most police officers serve with pride and perform professionally. 
Let's not pretend they all do! 

Chicago has endorsed and supported police torture and killings. 
There is no way for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to pretend! 

In April, the Chicago Tribune revealed Van Dyke’s name and his history of civilian complaints—including several brutality complaints, one of which cost the city $500,000 in a civil lawsuit—none of which resulted in any disciplinary action. In May, Carol Marin reported that video from a security camera at a Burger King on the scene had apparently been deleted by police in the hours after the shooting.

“This case shows the operation of the code of silence in the Chicago Police Department,” said Futterman. “From the very start you have officers and detectives conspiring to cover up the story. The question is, why are they not being charged?”

Raw Video: Chicago Police dashcam video of Laquan McDonald shooting

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How Chicago Tried to Cover Up a Police Execution

Curtis Black, Chicago Reporter
Excerpt: "There are an average of 50 police shootings of civilians every year in Chicago, and no one is ever charged. Without the video of Laquan McDonald's shooting, his death would have been just one more of 50 such incidents, where the police blotter defines the narrative and nothing changes."
READ MORE

t was just about a year ago that a city whistleblower came to journalist Jamie Kalven and attorney Craig Futterman out of concern that Laquan McDonald’s shooting a few weeks earlier “wasn’t being vigorously investigated,” as Kalven recalls. The source told them “that there was a video and that it was horrific,” he said.

Without that whistleblower—and without that video—it’s highly unlikely that Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke would be facing first-degree murder charges today.

“When it was first reported it was a typical police shooting story,” Kalven said, where police claim self-defense and announce an investigation, and “at that point the story disappears.” And, typically, a year or 18 months later, the Independent Police Review Authority confirms the self-defense claim, and “by then no one remembers the initial incident.”

“There are an average of 50 police shootings of civilians every year in Chicago, and no one is ever charged,” said Futterman. “Without the video, this would have been just one more of 50 such incidents, where the police blotter defines the narrative and nothing changes.”

Last December, Kalven and Futterman issued a statement revealing the existence of a dash-cam video and calling for its release.  Kalven tracked down a witness to the shooting, who said he and other witnesses had been “shooed away” from the scene with no statements or contact information taken.

In February, Kalven obtained a copy of McDonald’s autopsy, which contradicted the official story that McDonald had died of a single gunshot to the chest. In fact, he’d been shot 16 times—as Van Dyke unloaded his service revolver, execution style—while McDonald lay on the ground.

The next month, the City Council approved a $5 million settlement with McDonald’s family, whose attorneys had obtained the video. They said it showed McDonald walking away from police at the time of the shooting, contradicting the police story that he was threatening or had “lunged at” cops. The settlement included a provision keeping the video confidential.

“The real issue here is, this terrible thing happened, how did our governmental institutions respond?” Kalven said.  “And from everything we’ve learned, compulsively at every level, from the cops on the scene to the highest levels of government, they responded by circling the wagons and by fabricating a narrative that they knew was completely false.”  To him this response is “part of a systemic problem” and preserves “the underlying conditions that allow abuse and shield abuse.”

In April, the Chicago Tribune revealed Van Dyke’s name and his history of civilian complaints—including several brutality complaints, one of which cost the city $500,000 in a civil lawsuit—none of which resulted in any disciplinary action. In May, Carol Marin reported that video from a security camera at a Burger King on the scene had apparently been deleted by police in the hours after the shooting.

“This case shows the operation of the code of silence in the Chicago Police Department,” said Futterman. “From the very start you have officers and detectives conspiring to cover up the story. The question is, why are they not being charged?”

Van Dyke’s history “also shows what happens when the police department consistently chooses not to look at patterns of abuse complaints when investigating misconduct charges,” he adds. This failure “is one of the reasons an officer like Van Dyke has an opportunity to execute a 17-year-old kid.”

Rather than acknowledging the systemic failures, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is now trying to frame the issue as the action of one bad officer, as the Tribune reports.  “One individual needs to be held accountable,” he said Monday.

Kalven calls Emanuel’s “reframing” of the narrative “essentially false.” He points out that “everything we know now, the city knew from Day One. They had the officers on the scene. They knew there were witnesses. They had the autopsy, they had the video.... They maintained a false narrative about those events, and they did it for a year, when it could have been corrected almost immediately....They spent a year stonewalling any calls for transparency, any information about the case.”

He points to Cincinnati, where last summer a university officer was indicted for murder and video from his body camera was released within days following the shooting of an unarmed African-American man in a traffic stop.

“The policy in Cincinnati is that you should release within 24 hours unless there are compelling investigatory reasons to hold on longer,” said Kalven.  “The policy should be that the presumption is that this is public information and it is released as quickly as can reasonably be done, except in cases where there is a genuine and very specific investigatory need to withhold it.”

That’s not the same as waiting until an investigation is concluded. Friday’s ruling that the McDonald video must be released—and the absence of any affidavit from investigators about the need to withhold it—showed that “there was absolutely no legal or investigatory impediment to releasing this” long ago.

“This was an incredible test of leadership, a major challenge to [Emanuel’s] leadership,” Kalven said.  “Think how different the situation would be right now if the city had acknowledged the reality of what happened in the days or weeks after it happened. That would have built confidence.”

And instead of vague and politically self-serving calls for “healing,” it could have begun a real process of accountability of the kind necessary to start addressing the extreme alienation between police and wide segments of our communities.

Instead, with only Van Dyke indicted, it looks like he’s being sacrificed in order to protect the system that created him.

 http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/33685-how-chicago-tried-to-cover-up-a-police-execution