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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / #BLM #M4BL / It’s a Coverup

It’s a Coverup

by | 122 Comments

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Burger+King+SCREEN+GRAB+1

From the bottom up:

On the night of the Laquan McDonald shooting, Chicago police entered the nearby Burger King restaurant on Pulaski Road to see what its security cameras captured, a store official told NBC 5 News six months ago.

When they left, the store official said, the security video was missing.

Now NBC 5 News has obtained screen grabs of what appears to be at least one police officer in the Burger King at what appears to be a computer terminal that night.

What happened to the video is disputed. Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said testing showed the computer files had not been tampered with.

NBC 5 has obtained screen grabs of what appears to be at least one police officer in a nearby Burger King at what appears to be a computer terminal the night Laquan McDonald died.

Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said there appeared to have been technical difficulties.

But as we first reported last May, a Burger King district manager said police deleted the security footage after spending more than three hours in the restaurant.

The NY Times has an op-ed piece detailing how it all went down:

THERE’S been a cover-up in Chicago. The city’s leaders have now brought charges against a police officer, Jason Van Dyke, for the first-degree murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. But for more than a year, Chicago officials delayed the criminal process, and might well have postponed prosecution indefinitely, had it not been for a state court forcing their hand.
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They prevented the public from viewing crucial incriminating evidence — first one police car’s dashboard camera video; now, we learn, five such videos in total. And these senior officials turned a blind eye to the fact that 86 minutes of other video surveillance footage of the crime scene was unaccountably missing.

The Cook County prosecutor, Anita Alvarez, must have had probable cause to indict Officer Van Dyke for the Oct. 20, 2014, shooting death of Mr. McDonald the moment she viewed the police dash-cam video, after her office received it two weeks later. That video, in her own words, was “everything that it has been described to be by the news accounts. It is graphic. It is violent. It is chilling.”

Ms. Alvarez, and other city leaders, surely knew they would have to indict Mr. Van Dyke for murder as soon as the public saw that footage. “I have absolutely no doubt,” Ms. Alvarez finally said last week, “that this video will tear at the hearts of all Chicagoans.”

But the timing, in late 2014, was not good.

Then up for re-election, the mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, was looking ahead to a contested election on Feb. 24, 2015, which would ultimately result in a runoff election on April 7. In Ferguson, Mo., a grand jury was hearing testimony on the police shooting of Michael Brown. The video of Eric Garner being choked to death during an arrest in New York had gone viral. The Black Lives Matter movement was gaining momentum across the country.

The video of a police shooting like this in Chicago could have buried Mr. Emanuel’s chances for re-election. And it would likely have ended the career of the police superintendent, Garry F. McCarthy.

And so the wheels of justice virtually ground to a halt. Mayor Emanuel refused to make the dash-cam video public, going to court to prevent its release. The city argued that releasing the video would taint the investigation of the case, but even the attorney general of Illinois urged the city to make it available.

Then the city waited until April 15 — one week after Mr. Emanuel was re-elected — to get final approval of a pre-emptive $5 million settlement with Mr. McDonald’s family, a settlement that had been substantially agreed upon weeks earlier. Still, the city’s lawyers made sure to include a clause that kept the dash-cam video confidential.

Around the time the freelance journalist Brandon Smith filed suit for release of the dash-cam video, on Aug. 5, 2015, the Chicago Police Department told him that it had already received, and rejected, 14 other Freedom of Information Act requests for the evidence. The city spent thousands of dollars in legal expenses to keep the video under wraps. And it would probably have continued to do so, had Judge Franklin Valderrama of the Cook County Circuit Court not ordered its release.

Meanwhile, the state’s prosecutor, Ms. Alvarez, concluded that there had been no evidence of tampering when police officers allegedly erased 86 minutes of video footage from Burger King surveillance cameras close to the location of Mr. McDonald’s shooting by Officer Van Dyke. The missing footage was from 9:13 to 10:39 p.m. — bracketing the time when Mr. McDonald was shot (around 9:50 p.m.).

City leaders did everything in their power to keep the homicide from the public as long as possible. Indeed, Mr. Van Dyke was indicted only after the forced release of the videos.

Heads are starting to roll as Rahm tries to save himself:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel ousted Chicago’s police superintendent on Tuesday, after the city’s police department came under fire over an officer shooting a teenager 16 times, and for resisting, for more than a year, to release of a video of the fatal shooting.

“He has become an issue, rather than dealing with the issue, and a distraction,” Mr. Emanuel said of the police chief, Garry F. McCarthy.

The mayor hired Mr. McCarthy, 56, in 2011 to take over law enforcement in a city plagued by persistent violent crime, and homicides declined during his tenure. But Chicago still has a serious problem with gang violence, in particular, including the Nov. 2 killing of Tyshawn Lee, 9, who police say was targeted by gang members.

But the biggest blow to the department came with the release last week of dashboard camera video of the Oct. 14, 2014, shooting of Laquan McDonald, 17, by Officer Jason Van Dyke, which had led to protests against police use of force and calls for Mr. McCarthy to be dismissed.

Alvarez and Rahm need to go as well as anyone involved in this, even if they have to fire 50 cops.

Reader Interactions

122Comments

  1. 1.

    Oatler.

    You don’t “fire” a rogue paramilitary army inside your own borders, you dismantle it with extreme prejudice.

  5. 5.

    muddy

    @benw: Yes, for so long Chicago was known for its fair and upright policing in particular, and governance in general. Such a shame it has been ruined now.

    That being said, I also loathe Rahm.

  6. 6.

    Peale

    I wonder if the press in Chicago will finally start putting pressure on Rahm to shed light on Homan Square instead of taking police word for it that the accusations are “overblown.”

  10. 10.

    John PM

    I keep telling people that my dad was a Chicago police officer for 40 years and to the best of my knowledge never shot anyone, in what were objectively more dangerous times. There is no reason to shoot someone 16 times, especially when there are at least 5 squad cars and 10 police surrounding a teenager with a knife. This whole situation is like a rejected script from Law & Order.

    The firing of McCarthy cannot be the end of this process, but only another step. All the police involved in this situation need to go, all the way up to their commander. We also need to require police officers to undergo annual psychiatric testing. Just because you may be mentally healthy when you start out as a police officer doesn’t mean that you stay that way. We also need mandatory drug and alcohol screening.

  13. 13.

    Patricia Kayden

    Along with Rahm and Alvarez, the cop who deleted the Burger King footage should also be prosecuted for evidence tampering. Any cop who saw the shooting and covered up for Officer Van Dyke should also be prosecuted. The list goes on and on.

    Looks like there’s a lot of mess going on in Chicago. You have a high murder rate and corrupt, murderous cops. Plus government officials who are okay with the corruption. Not a good combination.

  14. 14.

    Elie

    I will say, thank the Lord for the individuals of integrity and honor in what remains of our wounded system (like the Cook County judge who forced the video to be released). They separate us from the law of the jungle… by thin threads…..

  16. 16.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @NotMax: There is so much win here. Thanks, I needed a little smile after reading this post. I am losing faith…

    I’m off to search out stories of people being kind to one another.

  17. 17.

    Iowa Old Lady

    A friend of mine is in federal law enforcement and right now is tasked with, among other things, investigating every time a shot is fired when this agency is present. This agency pretty much always says “good shoot.” But my friend looked at this video and said, “Oh my god, that officer is in a lot of trouble.”

  19. 19.

    Davebo

    It’s beyond a coverup. It’s a massive clusterfuck! And how the hell did they think they’d be able to cover it up indefinitely?

    But I’m not holding my breath waiting for the state’s attorney, mayor or anyone else being held accountable.

  20. 20.

    Elie

    @Patricia Kayden:

    The Chicago Police Department needs a complete purge. It is past disgraceful and is an outright clear and present danger to the citizens of the city. Ditto the Mayor and his DA….

  21. 21.

    Emma Anne

    They aren’t just corrupt and venal, but also stupid. If they had indicted this cop after they were all safely reelected, none of this would have hit the fan. But no, they had to wait until the tape was publicly released.

  22. 22.

    Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA

    @Iowa Old Lady: Rumor is there’s a scene in The Revenant in which Leonardo DiCaprio is raped by a bear. However:

    1. I didn’t know that until after I saw the Gawker post and commenters mentioned it, and I’m guessing a lot of other people won’t know the context either; and

    2. Regardless of context, a Presidential campaign tweeted about bear-on-man rape.

    Again (and I’m sure you’ll agree with me here): WTF?!

  24. 24.

    Steve Finlay

    Does anyone think that Chief McCarthy would have acted this way WITHOUT believing that the mayor supported him in doing so? Nice toss under the bus, Mr. Emanuel. The fish stinks from the head.

  25. 25.

    FlyingToaster

    @Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: I think that 5% number for ¿Jeb? might be the ceiling, not the floor.

    The responses to that tweet (especially several “how has this NOT been deleted?”) are pretty telling.

    This, along with Trump’s attempt to scam CNN ($5Mil or I walk) are sending the GOP race from being the KlownKar to being an entire 3-ring circus, plus the Geeks-n-Freaks tent.

  26. 26.

    maya

    @Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Obviously, Jeb! got a question from one of his potential supporters (with bucks) as to whether the fetus from such a pairing could be aborted or not under his presidency and he and his staff are giving it the serious introspective attention it deserves. Or. Maybe he’s about to solve the mystery of Bigfoot.

  27. 27.

    kindness

    ‘even if they have to fire 50 cops’.

    Just like some lawyer jokes I would say that would be a decent start.

  29. 29.

    Served

    It’s also been reported that after the shooting, instead of tending to McDonald, police moved their cars so that none of them were facing the scene of the crime. That way the dashcams couldn’t see what they were doing.

  32. 32.

    Elie

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    ..AND apparently can’t pick staffers to protect him either… Gives you a sense of the garbage he would appoint if, God forbid, he became President.

  34. 34.

    burnspbesq

    @Patricia Kayden:

    the cop who deleted the Burger King footage

    If there is any admissible evidence that such deletions took place, then I would agree. As far as anyone knows right now, there is no such evidence, and all the logical inferences in the world aren’t going to get you a conviction without it.

  36. 36.

    sharl

    @Steve Finlay:
    ~

    Does anyone think that Chief McCarthy would have acted this way WITHOUT believing that the mayor supported him in doing so? Nice toss under the bus, Mr. Emanuel.

    ~
    That’s what I’m thinking. Rahm had better hope that McCarthy didn’t take detailed notes, or worse yet (for Rahm) wire himself and/or their meeting places to record their chats about this topic. Then again, I doubt that Rahm got to where he is by being careless about such matters.

  37. 37.

    BGinCHI

    I loathe Rahm and did not vote for him. Alvarez seemed decent and so I don’t know what to say about her. She fucked up, though, and ought to own up to it.

    But the real problem here is the culture within the city government and the PD, including, of course, the DA’s office and State’s Attorney.

    Until that structural, systemic problem gets addressed directly and without worrying about political consequences, it ain’t gonna matter who the mayor is.

  38. 38.

    Face

    even if they have to fire 50 cops.

    And then the rest of the force would stage a walk-out. And the FOP spokescrook would go on Fox every day for month screaming about Blue Lives Matter.

    Not to mention, this cop is going to walk after this. Cops shooting knife-toting negros suddenly is no longer a crime in Chicago, especially if this is tried in the lily-white suburbs.

  40. 40.

    burnspbesq

    @Elie:

    The Chicago Police Department needs a complete purge.

    Maybe so, but then what? Where, exactly, is a new generation of non-racist, non-addicted-to-excess-force officers going to come from? If CPD continues to recruit from where it has historically recruited, the yield isn’t going to be materially different. The CPD is a fair reflection of white, working-class Chicago.

  42. 42.

    oldster

    I hope McCarthy takes this opportunity to repay Rahm’s kindness.

    McCarthy did exactly what Rahm told him, and now Rahm has betrayed him. I will be very surprised if McCarthy’s lawyer is not talking with the Feds at this moment, getting immunity so that he can tell them everything he knows about Rahm’s empire.

  45. 45.

    NobodySpecial

    The Chicago PD is a real piece of work.

    First it was Dante Sevrin getting (IMHO, deliberately) mischarged, beating the rap because of said mischarge, and not getting fired until the day before the McDonald shooting video was released.

    Then there’s the guy involved in the Kotschman case, Dean Andrews. He helped cover up for Daley’s nephew and not only didn’t get disciplined, he got promoted.

    Then this, and that ‘thin blue line’ nonsense that every cop should be beaten about the head and shoulders with it’s corollary, ‘It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup.’ All headed up by Mr. Tough Guy Emanuel himself, Lord of the Fragile Golden Ego.

    That police department needs an enema. Too bad the only guy in charge is too much of an egomaniac who can’t admit he was wrong to do anything useful about it.

  47. 47.

    Mike J

    @rp:

    Why isn’t the testimony of the store manager admissible?

    You expect him to live long enough to testify?

  49. 49.

    peach flavored shampoo

    That Burger King district manager better go 2 mph under the limit at all times, use a turn signal at every possibility, and double and triple check the legal limits of tinting of his windows. I’m afraid he’s got the attention of Those Sworn to Harrass Protect and Arrest Serve.

  51. 51.

    daveNYC

    @burnspbesq:
    BK Manager says they deleted the footage.
    There’s images of the police officers at the computer terminal.
    The only footage missing is covering the time period of the shooting.

    You might not be able to convict, because ‘cops’, but you should be able to indict.

  52. 52.

    Mike J

    @BGinCHI: Was the link naked? Balooon-juice adds tracking javascript to every outbound url, even for people with the do not track flag set in their browser. Their buggy software repeats the url 3 times, triggering moderation for too many urls.

  55. 55.

    NobodySpecial

    @a different chris: At least eight. And not only did they not prevent it, they also covered it up by supporting the bogus story about him advancing with a knife. No doubt they expected the dashcam to conveniently disappear, and I’m sure someone’s head will roll if it hasn’t already for not disappearing it.

  56. 56.

    Germy

    @Mike J:

    Balooon-juice adds tracking javascript to every outbound url,

    What does that mean? I don’t know much about tracking javascript and what it does.

  57. 57.

    Steeplejack

    @BGinCHI:

    FYWP doesn’t like naked links right now. (If that’s what your problem turns out to be.) Dress it up with the link-mo-tron above the comment box.

  60. 60.

    burnspbesq

    @rp:

    That testimony would be admissible, but what can he testify to? “They were in there for a long time” isn’t exactly the same as “I saw the officer highlight a whole bunch of the timeline and then press ‘delete.'” And even if his testimony is the latter, if there’s no forensics to back it up, a jury that wanted to acquit would be free to say that his testimony isn’t convincing.

    Worst case scenarios here are pretty damn bad.

  61. 61.

    Roger Moore

    @maya:

    Obviously, Jeb! got a question from one of his potential supporters (with bucks) as to whether the fetus from such a pairing could be aborted or not under his presidency and he and his staff are giving it the serious introspective attention it deserves.

    I would think this point would be clear. In the event of a legitimate bear on human rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. If it’s not legitimate rape, then it’s obviously some kind of unnatural relationship that should be punished by stoning both parties just the way Leviticus tells us to.

  62. 62.

    BGinCHI

    Wait, I thought a “naked link” was one without any other comments, but you mean a pasted in link by itself.

    Damn.

    My bad.

    Wanted to post this piece by the Reader’s Ben Joravsky. Well worth a read.

  64. 64.

    Elie

    @burnspbesq:

    Well what are you saying then? Its hopeless? We shouldn’t even try to make it better?

    Yes, while it is black people who suffer most from bad cops, they are by no means the only ones. The thread of corruption snares everyone who is not rich and powerful eventually. Don’t white people get it? Heroin was ok as long as black people were using it and they “deserved” to be put into prison just for using. Now we see that heroin and opioid addiction is rife among white kids and middle agers.

    This blue line of corruption will not stop with having impact on just black people. Already we know that is the case.

    We had better get ready to do this unless we want to be living in an increasingly corrupt and non legitimate system.

  66. 66.

    danielx

    Rahm should have known better than just about anybody that it’s the cover up that ends up biting you in the ass.

  69. 69.

    rp

    @burnspbesq: As noted earlier, it’s easily enough to get an indictment. The manager can testify that the cops came in, spent 3 hours with the video, and that afterwards the video for the period of the shooting was gone. The prosecutor could then introduce the security data into evidence and show that the footage from before and after that period is available but the relevant footage is not. Of course it’s not a slam dunk that they’d get a conviction, but that’s not a compelling argument for doing nothing.

  70. 70.

    Elie

    @NobodySpecial:

    I get that. I don’t believe that he supports corruption and criminality without consequence, however. Easy to take on? No. But that is different than not even asserting that it should be done… I would hope that he has that level of integrity or else we are just waiting for the jungle.

  71. 71.

    Rafer Janders

    @burnspbesq:

    Where, exactly, is a new generation of non-racist, non-addicted-to-excess-force officers going to come from?

    Germany, Sweden, Denmark, the UK…..

  72. 72.

    rp

    @burnspbesq: Also, how do you know that the forensics can’t back up the testimony? And why is the worst case scenario so terrible? (and why should the worst case dictate the decision making in any event?)

    Your argument is a little weird.

  74. 74.

    Rafer Janders

    @daveNYC:

    From what I’ve heard, the other cops wouldn’t have been able to do much to stop it. Shooter cop rolled up and started blazing away.

    They may not have been able to stop it, but once the shooter cop shot the kid, did they then turn their guns on him, order him to drop his weapon and show his hands, and handcuff and arrest him for murder?

    To ask the question is to answer it.

  76. 76.

    NobodySpecial

    @Elie: I’ve found over the years that there’s a long streak of ‘Nothing Can Be Done!’ that runs through this website. Unsurprising to me to see it raise it’s head again.

  77. 77.

    NobodySpecial

    @rp: He’s probably read the Sun-Times or the Tribune, where Alvarez has said the FBI has said the tape is clean. Put a McDonalds manager up against an FBI forensics expert in court and you can guess what the outcome is. Burnsie is right from that singular aspect of it. However, I still think there’s ways for a creative prosecution to press the case, particularly in light of statements that their security system was ‘a mess’ and ‘prone to breakdowns’ by showing other security data that is uncorrupted and pulling out any examples of where they gave cops footage for any other times with that same system.

    But as I noted above, Nothing Can Be Done.

  78. 78.

    trollhattan

    I don’t pretend to understand mega-cities like Chicago and LA and NY and I suppose, DFW at this point. Their autonomy and ingrained cultures give them the appearance of nation-states from the outside, and their governments and public safety departments all seem to wield phenomenal power without notable influence from the feds or the state. Specific to Chicago, I suspect the only thing that would change their PD’s culture would involve the feds assuming oversight, which seems rather impossible. Those multi-million dollar payouts are just another “cost of doing bidnes.”

  79. 79.

    Elie

    @NobodySpecial:

    I think that there is a thick streak of that in most Americans. Despite all our preening about our incredible”freedom”, we are mostly obedient to our masters.

    However, I am not totally cynical. We have worked and moved things forward here. I am not living the life of my parents or their parents. Things are better and people did that. We just seem to get disappointed that we can never rest… that we have to keep doing it and making “progress” as well as cleaning up when we back slide.

    BTW, I am a BJ’er and I don’t consider myself a giver upper…

  80. 80.

    Geeno

    @Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: That reminds of the guy who set up the original SWAT team here in Rochester, NY. He said he asked the group who wanted to be on the SWAT team, and mentally disqualified anyone who raised their hand. Our SWAT team isn’t a regular thing. They’re regular officers with regular postings/assignments, but who have extra training and are essentially on-call 24/7 if a SWAT situation arises – they get a little extra pay for the trouble.

  81. 81.

    moderateindy

    I said this in an earlier post but the real scandal was not murdering the kid. It was the systematic cover up. When something this crazy occurs you would imagine that it would become public quite quickly because it would be very difficult to get everyone on the same page. That is, of course, unless such things are so common that everyone involved has lots of practice in covering crap like this up. The going, and deleting the BK video is not an action a reasonable person would think to do if they didn’t have exerience with such situations before.
    I know half a dozen Chicago cops pretty well. All are virulent racists. 4 of them, all city boys born and bred, went in as horrible racists. The other two were not, until they became Chicago cops. I’m not talking about run of the mill, “I hate the NiClangs racism. They truly see blacks, and hispanics as less than human, it is disturbing to be around them when they are in a group together. The culture is beyond toxic, and honestly I doubt that it can be changed because it is so completely and utterly ingrained into the organizational psyche.
    But I do think that any cop that was there, and filed a false report should be fired, and stripped of their pension. Perhaps setting such an example would change the dynamic for the next time this thing happens. If their livelihood, and future financial prospects were at stake, it might make some cops not want to risk covering up such a heinous act. And just like cops do with criminal suspects, the best way to get them to come clean is by leveraging the idea that their partners are gonna flip first ,and leave them holding the bag.

  82. 82.

    burnspbesq

    @Elie:

    Well what are you saying then?

    That it’s going to be a long, hard process, with lots of setbacks. Expectation management is key to avoiding despair.

    The arc of history may bend toward justice, but it does so pretty damn slowly.

  83. 83.

    Bill Arnold

    @burnspbesq:

    If there is any admissible evidence that such deletions took place, then I would agree.

    I do wonder what level of investigation took place. If the video was being captured to a file system on a hard disk (or SSD) then unless the video control software supported “secure” (overwriting) delete, the hard disk could still have had recoverable video on it. (I do not have experience with security DVRs to know one way or the other.)

  86. 86.

    Paul in KY

    @burnspbesq: You have footage from hours & hours of non-descript burger buying & then there is a gap that coincides with the crime. I’m sure that is a complete coincidence.

  87. 87.

    Calouste

    @John PM:

    when there are at least 5 squad cars and 10 police surrounding a teenager with a knife

    Too many cops with not enough to do.

  88. 88.

    goblue72

    @burnspbesq: Once again, totally missing the overall point down there in the heart of country club Republicanland. Par for the course for you. Don’t you have some offshore tax dodge to set up for one of your corporate clients?

  89. 89.

    Brachiator

    @Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:

    Rumor is there’s a scene in The Revenant in which Leonardo DiCaprio is raped by a bear

    So, Jeb! is trying to answer that age old question, does a bear shtup in the forest?

    Also, The Revenant is the movie that one film critic said was too tough for the wymins to watch.

  91. 91.

    Elie

    @moderateindy:

    I don’t mean to be confrontational with you, but really — how does someone have friends like what you describe? How does one look past that, even though granted, we all have friends with issues?Do you ever say something when you hear the hate? Do you just change the subject?

    Again, not wanting to be nasty to you — just genuinely wondering….

  92. 92.

    Elie

    @burnspbesq:

    I’ll give you that but I would say its not that its slowly — its that it keeps having to be rebent over and over — that you can never stop with the bending…

  94. 94.

    rikyrah

    EXCLUSIVE: Blame it on Obama! Radio legend and first African-American nationally syndicated host Tom Joyner getting the boot timed to President’s exit from White House
    Dec 1, 2015

    *Tom Joyner, 65, being forced into early retirement from The Tom Joyner Morning Show which reaches eight million listeners in 105 markets daily

    *Source claims plan is to phase Joyner out of radio to line up with President Barack Obama leaving White House

    *Decision to get rid of Joyner was made by former business associate and best friend David Kantor, reveals source

    *Kantor encouraged Joyner to sell shares of his company Reach Media to radio conglomerate Radio One, sources claim

    Radio One plans to move syndicated host Russ Parr, 56, into Joyner’s time slots in Washington, DC and Baltimore starting in January

    ‘Tom isn’t ready to go and hasn’t even made plans for life after radio. Radio is his passion and it’s all he knows,’ source tells Daily Mail Online

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3339587/Blame-Obama-Radio-legend-African-American-nationally-syndicated-host-Tom-Joyner-getting-boot-timed-President-s-exit-White-House.html#ixzz3t62KPHlE

  95. 95.

    Mike J

    @Calouste:

    when there are at least 5 squad cars and 10 police surrounding a teenager with a knife

    Too many cops with not enough to do.

    I disagree. Having “too many” cops respond when there’s a potentially violent situation *should* make it easier to resolve without over using force.Of course that’s not what happened, but with a well trained force it would.

  97. 97.

    goblue72

    I know a number of college-educated, white liberal, NPR-listening, organic food co-op shopping Chicagoans who voted for Rahm in 2011, quite enthusiastically. Same basic type of Democrats in NYC who voted, enthusiastically, for Bloomberg. Despite overwhelming evidence that neither gave a shit about poor or working class interests, and were far more law-and-order politicians but who show up at the Gay Pride march to burnish their “I’m not a hater” bonafides.

    White folks, white folks, what ya gonna do, what ya gonna do when the white folks come for you?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/nyregion/mayor-de-blasio-has-lost-support-of-white-new-yorkers-poll-finds.html

  98. 98.

    goblue72

    I know a number of college-educated, white liberal, NPR-listening, organic food co-op shopping Chicagoans who voted for Rahm in 2011, quite enthusiastically. Same basic type of Democrats in NYC who voted, enthusiastically, for Bloomberg. Despite overwhelming evidence that neither gave a shit about poor or working class interests, and were far more law-and-order politicians but who show up at the Gay Pride march to burnish their “I’m not a hater” bonafides.

    White folks, white folks, what ya gonna do, what ya gonna do when the white folks come for you?

  99. 99.

    Roger Moore

    @trollhattan:

    I don’t pretend to understand mega-cities like Chicago and LA and NY and I suppose, DFW at this point. Their autonomy and ingrained cultures give them the appearance of nation-states from the outside, and their governments and public safety departments all seem to wield phenomenal power without notable influence from the feds or the state.

    That quite specifically isn’t true in the case of LAPD. They were under a consent decree for most of the 2000s, and they can be placed back under the decree if they show signs of backsliding. Unsurprisingly, they’ve improved markedly in the time since the consent decree was implemented, and somewhat surprisingly they don’t seem to have backslid since it ended. The really big corruption in Los Angeles is at the county, not city, level.

  103. 103.

    Paul in KY

    @Mike J: I disagree. It’s one freaking dumbass with a knife. 2 cars tops. There is supposedly other crime in that not-so-small city of Chicago & the other ones oughta be protecting other people.

  104. 104.

    Roger Moore

    @Mike J:

    I disagree. Having “too many” cops respond when there’s a potentially violent situation *should* make it easier to resolve without over using force.Of course that’s not what happened, but with a well trained force it would.

    The problem is that the more cops show up, the greater the chance that one of them will be an out-of-control yahoo whose first response to the problem will be disproportionate violence. On a well trained force, the in-control cops would keep the out-of-control one from acting on his worst instincts, but in a badly trained one, the out-of-control guy is more likely to drag the rest along with him. In this case, he doesn’t seem to have been able to get any of the other cops to open fire, but they seem to have been perfectly happy to help cover stuff up.

  106. 106.

    goblue72

    @Roger Moore: Agreed. Look even at Chicago, the city government is corrupt, but Cook County manages to at minimum equal it, if not exceed it, in levels of corruption.

  107. 107.

    goblue72

    @Paul in KY: Seriously. How hard is it to tase a dude with a knife? They carry tasers for exactly this kind of scenario. Dude is mos def NOT waving a gun around. There’s a bunch of cops with guns vs. one dude with a knife. Tase him.

    Though, as we know with Oscar Grant, even when the arrestee is partially subdued, cops reach for the gun instead of the taser.

  108. 108.

    Harold Samson

    @NobodySpecial:

    Been reading here long enough to see that “burnsie” is narrow-minded and a self-considered-expert on all things.

    “Experts have their expert fun,
    ex-cathedra telling one,
    just how nothing can be done.”

  109. 109.

    burnspbesq

    @goblue72:

    totally missing the overall point

    And what, pray tell, is the point?

    (this oughta be good …)

    As for the rest of your nonsense, shove it right up your ass.

  110. 110.

    burnspbesq

    @Paul in KY:

    I’m sure that is a complete coincidence.

    It almost certainly isn’t a coincidence. But which element(s) of the offense of obstruction of justice, if any, does it prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

    Are you being deliberately obtuse, or do you really not understand how difficult it is to get a jury to convict a cop?

  111. 111.

    lethargytartare

    @burnspbesq:

    Are you being deliberately obtuse,

    oh come on, burnsie, no one can out-obtuse you, what with your constant and willful misunderstanding of the word “should”

  112. 112.

    Roger Moore

    @goblue72:
    In LA, there are specific structural reasons why the county government is more prone to corruption than the city government. One is the level of scrutiny they get. The LA city government is much more closely watched by the media than the county government is, and I think most voters who live in cities pay more careful attention to their city elections than to county elections. There’s also a huge amount of patronage available at the county level, which is exaggerated because many city governments contract some or all of their services (including law enforcement) from the county. The combination makes it almost impossible for an incumbent to lose a bid for reelection absent a major scandal. Add in that there are only a handful of county-wide elected officials- 5 supervisors, the sheriff, DA, and assessor- for an area with a population similar to Michigan or Georgia, and the amount of corruption available becomes obvious.

  113. 113.

    mr_gravity

    According to one of the lesser-known laws of gravity:

    “If you delete something intentionally it can always be recovered. If you delete it accidently it’s gone forever.”

  115. 115.

    Sad_Dem

    @Elie: There was a news story that appeared and disappeared recently about a white man who legally denied a cop entry to a trailer. The cop dragged the man out onto the porch and shot him dead. Exercising one’s rights while white but poor can also be deadly.

  116. 116.

    Satby

    @John PM: I’m the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of Chicago Policemen, and cousin to two. My father tried never to draw his gun, and he worked homicide and tactical team. He always said the guns escalated the situation and somebody could end up dead; but back then there was an effort to descalate if possible. One of my cousins, now retired, was a hostage negotiator. My kids hate cops, in spite of their heritage, because they say the cops are all power-tripping psychos now.
    Chicago was one of the first big cities to institute community policing, and that whole legacy has been thrown away too. Just tragic.

  118. 118.

    PIGL

    @Rafer Janders: The Marine Corps?

    Seriously, the way this gets fixed is that State Governments revoke municipal charters, disband entire police departments, and replace them with state or federal forces under a chain of command such that senior offices are responsible for the crimes of their subordinates.

    And no, it will never happen, but that’s what it would take.

  120. 120.

    Paul in KY

    @burnspbesq: Given the circumstances, it proves it to me. However, I agree that it is very, very hard to convict one. That shouldn’t stop you from giving it the ole college try, though.

  121. 121.

    Garrick

    It’s phenomenal that this NYT article summarizing police politics in Chicago doesn’t mention the Homan Square black site.

    It’s not surprising, but it’s an amazing level of journalistic malpractice by omission. Still only being covered by the Guardian.

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