Internal hemorrhaging by Design

Neglect, Deliberate deepening of U.S. Decline

U.S. public officials, their media and other corporate/NGO/nonprofit/”charity” partners, the loudest and most influential among them millionaires and billionaires, feed at the public trough and divide Americans over one distraction after another (a multi-billion-dollar wall of waste, endless private-profit foreign wars, more multi-billion dollar boondoggle arming of space)— the internal organs, systems and infrastructures, indeed the human relations of the United States become atrophied, cancerous, corrupt, out-of-date, in deep deterioration and decline.

The Chicago Police Department and its latest 2014-2019 case is an example of a system in critical decline for lack of essential staffing, training, retraining, in-service training, mandated regular psychological counseling, strict professional (not blue-coded) supervision, oversight, check, monitoring and correction mechanisms; as well as improved community-law enforcement relations.

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riter on prosecutorial and policing reform Johanna Wald

Law Officer Jason Van Dyke-Civilian Laquan McDonald Case

Predictable Tragedy – A cautionary tale about the consequences of a system that fails to train its employees properly or hold them accountable for minimal levels of standards; “by not holding Van Dyke accountable for prior excesses or adequately training him to de-escalate encounters and mitigate his biases, his superiors failed to rein in his worst impulses.”

• At the time of the shooting, Van Dyke had, in his 17 years on the police force, accumulated 20 documented citizen complaints against him, mostly for excessive force.

• The Citizens Police Data Project estimates that Van Dyke had more complaints filed against him than 94 percent of other officers.

• Combining four data sets, it found that five complaints were not sustained, five were unfounded, four resulted in exoneration, five had unknown outcomes and one resulted in no action taken. … [N]one resulted in discipline or any meaningful consequence to Van Dyke.

• With no public account of supervisors giving Van Dyke a directive to moderate his actions, why should he have felt any compulsion to change his approach?

• A review conducted by Strategies for Youth found that most police officers are not trained to understand that the presence of authority figures often triggers flight/freeze/fight responses in traumatized youth, regardless of guilt.

• Studies have shown “how automatic associations, often unconscious, can warp the judgment” of officials, law enforcement officers, and others “to the point where (they) literally see what does not exist.”

Wald concludes “It is time that police training, recruitment and oversight enter the 21st century and provide officers with the skills they need to keep the community safe, and themselves out of prison.”

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pecial prosecutor Joseph McMahon

The Sentencing Heating Concluding the Van Dyke-McDonald Case

•  “Our goal was to find the truth, present the truth and ask for justice. ... It was not revenge.”

• “It’s going to take a lot to repair the relationship with law enforcement — not just in Chicago, but across our country …. We’re not going to fix it with one case. We were not going to fix it with one sentence.…”

Sources

Commentary: “Chicago Cop Jason Van Dyke's Record Was a Warning Sign

Can the conviction of Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke finally force policing into the 21st century?” By Johanna Wald October 28, 2018 https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/10/28/warning-signs-were-clear-before-laquan-mcdonald-s-murder

Johanna Wald is a Boston-based writer on prosecutorial and policing reform, implicit bias and the school-to-prison pipeline whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Law Review, Education Week and USA Today, among others. She is the former Director of Strategic Planning at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School.

The Marshall Project: Mission Statement “a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system.” Through “journalism, partnerships with other news outlets and public forums,” The Marshall Project “strives to educate and enlarge the audience of people who care about the state of criminal justice.” https://www.themarshallproject.org/about?via=navright

The Dispatch CHICAGO (AP) “The Latest: Prosecutor says goal was justice, ‘not revenge’”

(Update from “The Latest on the sentencing of the Chicago police officer who fired the shots that killed black teenager Laquan McDonald”), by The Associated Press posted January 18, 2019 https://www.dispatch.com/ZZ/news/20190118/latest-prosecutor-says-goal-was-justice-not-revenge

“Special Prosecutor Joseph McMahon said Friday while summing up the state’s case that Van Dyke’s 2014 shooting of the 17-year-old has been ‘devastating’ not just for Chicago but for the entire nation because it has further deepened the public’s distrust in the police. … A jury convicted Van Dyke of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery, one for each time the officer shot McDonald” https://www.dispatch.com/ZZ/news/20190118/latest-prosecutor-says-goal-was-justice-not-revenge

Chicago Tribune “Rulings in Laquan McDonald cases leave police reformers questioning if progress has been made” January 18, 2019

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-laquan-mcdonald-jason-van-dyke-legacy-20190118-story.html

Chicago Sun-Times “Van Dyke gets 81 months for McDonald murder, sparking praise, condemnation” “The slaying of Laquan McDonald that has roiled the city for years ended with a prison sentence Friday that only deepened the rifts, as Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke will likely serve a little more than three years in prison after shooting the 17-year-old McDonald 16 times in 2014” By Andy Grimm, Jon Seidel and Nader Issa January 18, 2019

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/chicago-police-officer-jason-van-dyke-sentenced-81-months-laquan-mcdonald/

Wikipedia

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ctober 20, 2014: “The murder of Laquan McDonald took place in Chicago, Illinois”

·       Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke shoots and kills the 17-year-old who, reportedly, had been “behaving erratically while walking down the street, and holding a folding knife with a three-inch (7.5 cm) blade.” Internal police reports initially so-described the incident and ruled the shooting justified. Van Dyke was not then charged in the shooting.

·       Initial police portrayals of the incident prompt police supervisors to rule the case a justifiable homicide and within the bounds of the department’s use of force guidelines.
Attorneys for the estate of Laquan McDonald enter into negotiations with the City of Chicago to settle claims arising out of his death

·       April 15, 2015: Chicago City Council approves a $5 million settlement to McDonald’s family, although the family had not then filed a wrongful-death lawsuit. Part of the settlement agreement required that the video be sealed until investigations were completed.

·       Reporters note inconsistencies between the police narrative, the autopsy, and an anonymous eyewitness account before the video was publicly released.

·       A criminal investigation had begun weeks after the shooting, when the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) forwarded the case to the state’s attorney’s office and the FBI.

·       November 24, 2015: Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez announces that Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder. Van Dyke turns himself in to authorities.

·       November 30, 2015: Van Dyke is granted bail ($1,500,000; he posts $150,000, 10 percent of the bail) and is released from jail.

·       December 16, 2015, Van Dyke is indicted by a grand jury on six counts of first-degree murder and one count of official misconduct.

·       December 29, 2015: Van Dyke pleads not guilty to the charges.

·       March 23, 2017, the charges against Van Dyke are six counts of first degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery, one for each shot fired at Laquan McDonald.

·       September 5, 2018: Jury selection begins

·       September 17, 2018” Trial begins

·       October 5, 2018, Van Dyke is found guilty of second degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm; and not guilty of official misconduct.

·       January 18, 2019, Van Dyke is sentenced to 6.75 years in prison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Laquan_McDonald

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