Welcome To aBlackWeb

Murderous Pig found guilty of murder of Laquan McDonald..

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/us/laquan-mcdonald-van-dyke.html

CHICAGO — The grainy dash camera video showed a black 17-year-old named Laquan McDonald writhing in the street as Jason Van Dyke, a white Chicago police officer, fired bullet after bullet into him. In the end, the autopsy showed, Laquan was shot 16 times.

That police footage, and a lengthy effort to keep it from the public, came to define the tenure of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and led to a painful, prolonged reckoning for this city and its leaders. On Tuesday, about 22 hours before the scheduled start of jury selection in Officer Van Dyke’s murder trial, Mr. Emanuel announced that he would not seek re-election in February.

Laquan’s death changed Chicago, in ways obvious and still to be determined. It laid bare decades of distrust over Chicago police officers’ treatment of black residents and over City Hall’s lack of transparency. It led to policy changes and promises of a revamped Police Department. And it pushed Mr. Emanuel, a Democrat who built a reputation as a master tactician during stints in Congress and on two White House staffs, into a political bind that he endured but never overcame.

After the dash camera video was released in late 2015, Mr. Emanuel resisted protesters’ calls to resign and rebutted their claims of a top-to-bottom cover-up. But he also fired the police superintendent and promised, tearfully at times, a wholesale rethinking of how officers interact with black residents and how they use their weapons.

Nearly three years later, on the eve of Officer Van Dyke’s trial, many Chicagoans said they were dissatisfied with the mayor’s progress. Trust in the police remains low, the homicide rate remains high, and new police shootings continue to bring tense protests.

“This city’s in a world of hurt right now, and this trial and this election I think are watershed moments in this city’s history,” said Garry F. McCarthy, the police superintendent whom Mr. Emanuel fired and who is now a candidate to replace him as mayor. “Anybody can see that we’re taking on water in all compartments.”

A Turning Point for the Mayor

Mr. Emanuel’s seven and a half years as Chicago mayor can be separated into periods: pre-Laquan and post-Laquan.

In the pre-Laquan era, after a stint as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Mr. Emanuel had a broad base of black supporters, crime rates were declining, and he wielded immense power over the City Council. In the post-Laquan era, the mayor has been weakened and frequently on the defensive, burdened by the fallout from the McDonald shooting and a spike in homicides.

Mr. Emanuel, who declined to be interviewed for this article, surprised many in Chicago when he called a news conference with less than an hour’s notice on Tuesday morning and said he would not seek another term. He did not explicitly mention the McDonald case, and Adam Collins, a spokesman for the mayor, said the trial was not a factor in the decision.

At the same time, only a few miles from City Hall, Officer Van Dyke’s final pretrial hearing was underway at the county courthouse. During a break, a sheriff’s deputy casually informed lawyers and courtroom spectators of the mayor’s announcement; some reporters scrambled to leave to cover the story.

A large field of challengers had already lined up to run against Mr. Emanuel, and many had made gun violence, policing and the McDonald case central to their campaigns.

Much of the anger with Mr. Emanuel is focused on the 13-month period between Laquan’s 2014 death, which attracted little immediate news coverage, and the court-ordered release of the dash camera video in late 2015. In those months, Mr. Emanuel was elected to a second term as mayor and the Chicago City Council approved a $5 million settlement with the McDonald family. Even then, Chicago officials refused to release the video, saying it was part of a criminal investigation, until a judge ordered that it be made public over the city’s objections.

As the images of Laquan crumpling to the ground set off marches through Chicago’s downtown, protesters accused the mayor of keeping the video under wraps to help in a difficult re-election fight. “Sixteen shots and a cover-up” became a rallying cry.

“Rahm Emanuel’s will was forced,” said the Rev. Ira Acree, a critic of the mayor who leads a West Side church and who said trust in the police continues to recede.

Amid the protests, Mr. Emanuel pledged to equip all patrol officers with Tasersand body cameras, and he spoke in frank terms about inequity and distrust in the police.

“Nothing less than complete and total reform of the system and the culture that it breeds will meet the standard we have set for ourselves as a city,” Mr. Emanuel said in an emotional address to the City Council.

One thousand days have elapsed since that speech. City officials say the Police Department is being transformed. Some residents say they’ve seen few changes.

Update:



tenor.gif


Update 2:

 

Attachments

  • upload_2018-10-5_15-11-52.gif
    upload_2018-10-5_15-11-52.gif
    2.9 MB · Views: 62
Last edited:
An Officer on Trial


As Officer Van Dyke’s trial begins, Chicago is watching intently, nervously. Protesters have vowed to gather outside the county courthouse every day. Officer Van Dyke, who is free on bond and on unpaid leave from the Police Department, has pleaded not guilty. He told The Chicago Tribune last week that he behaved as he had been taught.

“I might be looking at the possibility of spending the rest of my life in prison for doing my job as I was trained as a Chicago police officer,” Officer Van Dyke told The Tribune.

Police officers have wide latitude to use deadly force. But prosecutors say Laquan posed no lethal threat and that Officer Van Dyke’s decision to shoot, and keep shooting, was unreasonable. Of at least seven other officers at the scene, none fired a single bullet. Later, many of them provided an account of the shooting that was favorable to Officer Van Dyke but not supported by the video.

On the evening of Oct. 20, 2014, officers encountered Laquan after receiving a complaint about someone with a knife trying to break into vehicles. Laquan has been remembered by family members as an affectionate, funny kid; Laquan also had contended with significant hurdles, including questions about who would take care of him, problems that landed him in alternative school and the death in 2013 of the grandmother who had, in large part, raised him.



That night, two officers trailed the teenager at a distance and asked dispatchers to send an officer with a Taser. More officers arrived. At one point, city officials said, Laquan pounded on the window of a squad car and punctured its front tire with a knife. Still, officers followed at a distance for several blocks as Laquan jogged ahead of their cruisers.

The tenor changed as soon as Officer Van Dyke pulled up. He quickly got out of his cruiser with his gun drawn and started shooting as Laquan moved slightly away from him. Even after the teenager collapsed onto the road, the shots kept coming.

“That video was such a flash point — just watching it felt like you were being injured,” said Lori E. Lightfoot, who at the time was president of the Chicago Police Board, an oversight agency, and who now is running for mayor.

No Chicago police officer has been convicted of murder for an on-duty shooting since 1970, according to The Tribune, and recent high-profile police shooting trials in Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma and Wisconsin have ended in acquittals or mistrials. There are exceptions, including last week in Texas, where an officer in suburban Dallas was convicted of murder in the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager.

A Tense Summer



Faith in the Chicago Police Department remains so low that many people instinctively reject the official version of events.

When a teenager fled police officers on the West Side in August and died of a gunshot wound, the medical examiner called it a suicide. Members of the boy’s family said they believed officers killed him.



When a “bait truck” loaded with Nike shoes was parked on the South Side this summer and officers waited to arrest any thieves, residents were appalled by the idea and blamed the police. City officials insisted the project was the idea of a railroad company.

And when officers fatally shot Harith Augustus, an African-American barber, on a busy street in July, it outraged neighbors and led to a tense night of protests. Police officials scrambled to release body camera footage showing that Mr. Augustus had a gun. Many said they remained upset about how officers handled the encounter.

“I don’t have a trust” in the police, said Patricia Summers, a South Side resident. Ms. Summers, who is black, said officers have unfairly profiled members of her family. “Chicago has been so corrupt for so long it would be a force of God in order to change it.”

Chicago, which has roughly even numbers of white, black and Hispanic residents, has long struggled with segregation and economic inequity. Complaints about the police, especially common in black and Hispanic neighborhoods, have been backed up by formal reviews.

A task force assembled by Mr. Emanuel after the McDonald video came out concluded that the Chicago Police Department was plagued by systemic racism. And in 2017, in the final days of Mr. Obama’s presidency, a Justice Department review found a pattern of discriminatory policing and unjustified shootings and called for a court-enforced consent decree.

Chicago officials are now in the final stages of negotiating a consent decree, based on the damning findings in those two reports, with the Illinois attorney general, who stepped in after President Trump’s Justice Department declined to pursue such an agreement.

Walter Katz, a deputy chief of staff for Mr. Emanuel, said the city has already made significant changes. The police tightened the rules on when officers can use force. A new agency was created to investigate police shootings. Officer training was revamped.



“There is no magic wand,” Mr. Katz said. “You rebuild trust one block at a time.”

Eddie Johnson, the police superintendent, said he believed the Police Department was about halfway through putting in place changes needed to rebuild trust.

But Mr. Johnson, who is black and grew up in Chicago, said he recognized why some remain skeptical. “Let’s face it,” he said, “we’re fighting decades of past history with the relationships between the black community and the Police Department.”
 
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/jason-van-dyke-murder-trial-jury-selection-laquan-mcdonald/

5 picked as Van Dyke jurors; another potential juror says son shot last week


Inside a spare, tense Cook County jury deliberation room, Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke met five of the 12 people Monday who could decide if he murdered 17-year-old Laquan McDonald when he shot him 16 times in 2014.

They are:

A gay white man in his 60s who says he’s somehow never seen the McDonald shooting video — which has been viewed by millions.

A stay-at-home Latina mother of three kids — all 10 or under — who says she respects police.

A middle-aged white woman who’s a hospital record keeper and believes in hearing all the evidence before making a decision.

A soft-spoken Asian-American man who’s a financial analyst.

A white woman whose husband is a retired Navy veteran and defense contractor.

All five were picked as jury selection in the highest profile criminal case Chicago has seen in years moved faster than expected Monday. Meanwhile, Van Dyke’s defense team doubled down on their argument that Van Dyke can’t get a fair trial — claiming jurors won’t want to be blamed for rioting if he is acquitted.

Defense attorney Dan Herbert also made a veiled threat to waive Van Dyke’s right to a jury trial, complaining that jurors who have made disqualifying comments in questionnaires were being rehabilitated through questioning by the judge.

Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan told Herbert, “you’re not threatening me” and later said, “I want your decision tomorrow.”

Herbert did not explicitly say that he was considering going forward with a bench trial.

It’s all happening in an unusual and intimate jury room setting — not in Gaughan’s courtroom — and watched by select members of the media and members of the public, rotating in and out of the room. The judge, defense lawyers, prosecutors and Van Dyke sat around a wooden table littered with legal papers and notepads, with the juror seated at the head of the table.

The process did not reveal jurors’ names, ages or hometowns. A few let slip their occupation — including a teacher, a plumber and a truck driver. Gaughan threatened to fine Van Dyke’s lawyers for accidentally blurting out a juror’s name — $200 for the first offense, $500 for the second.

It was also revealed that jurors could be sequestered, though it wasn’t clear if that would be for the duration of the trial or just deliberations.

Van Dyke’s lawyers filed a motion in July, complaining of media coverage of the shooting and arguing the trial should be moved outside Cook County. In a supplemental motion filed Monday, as jury selection was ongoing, they pointed to protesters who greeted the potential jurors outside the courthouse Wednesday as they reported for jury duty.

The crowd of protesters — barely outnumbering the 200 potential jurors summoned for the case — created a “carnival” atmosphere and likely gave passersby the impression there would be violence if Van Dyke is acquitted, the motion argues.

A smaller group of demonstrators appeared Monday, with the noise from one bullhorn-wielding demonstrator audible in parts of the courthouse, though not in Gaughan’s courtroom. Inside the jury room, the selection process was noteworthy mostly for its speed, moving through 19 potential jurors in about eight hours of questioning. At the current pace, the panel of 12 jurors and four alternates would be seated by the end of the week.

The defense used three of the seven “peremptory challenges” allotted to them to strike from the jury a Latina woman who said she had no opinion on the case, a black man who said he would prefer not to judge another human being because “God and Christ are the judges,” and a black woman with two sons — one of whom she learned had been shot Wednesday as she filled out her juror questionnaire. When Gaughan asked how her son was faring, she replied, “He’s fine.”

Herbert asked the judge to dismiss that woman, noting that she lived on the West Side — where Laquan McDonald grew up. He said one of her sons was 17 — the same age as McDonald when he was shot — and her older son was the same age McDonald would be today.

The woman told Gaughan she felt she could be a fair juror.

“I just say I’m my own person,” she said. “I’ve always said three sides to every story . . . that’s what I teach my kids.”

At least one juror, a white man in his 40s who was dismissed after a brief questioning, made it clear that what he’d seen on the video would make it all but impossible to find Van Dyke not guilty.

“The video doesn’t lie,” he wrote on his questionnaire. “You can spin it anyway you want. Cops think they can do anything they want to do. No accountability. Who watches the cops?”

As the process dragged on, Van Dyke sometimes conferred with his defense team but mostly sat glumly. His lawyers fidgeted in their chairs.

Herbert, in frustration, rubbed his palm against his face.
 
https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2018/0...n-dyke-trial-no-african-americans-chosen-yet/

As Jury Selection Continues In Van Dyke Trial, No African Americans Chosen, Yet

CHICAGO (CBS) — Jury selection resumes Wednesday in the trial of Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer charged with murder in the killing of Laquan McDonald.

Potential jurors will again take questions from the judge and attorneys on both sides.

CBS 2’s Jim Williams reports, five of the 12 jurors are in place. The judge is also looking for add four alternates.

So far, the juror choices appear safe, according to CBS 2 legal analyst Irv Miller.

“Nothing there that would stick out for either the prosecution or the defense as to why they shouldn’t be on the jury,” Miller said.

Of the five chosen yesterday: Two white women, one white man, an Asian American man and a Latina.

No African-Americans have been chosen yet in this racially charged trial of a white police officer accused of murder in the killing of a black teenager.

Miller expects black jurors will be on the panel.

“The judge won’t allow that to happen,” he said. “Jury selection is to have a fair cross-section of the community, to hear the case, to be tried by a jury of your peers.”
 

The defense used three of the seven “peremptory challenges” allotted to them to strike from the jury a Latina woman who said she had no opinion on the case, a black man who said he would prefer not to judge another human being because “God and Christ are the judges,” and a black woman with two sons — one of whom she learned had been shot Wednesday as she filled out her juror questionnaire. When Gaughan asked how her son was faring, she replied, “He’s fine.”

tenor.gif

tumblr_m35ly1h3qG1r4uxego1_500.gif
 
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...nald-jason-van-dyke-trial-20180912-story.html

Prosecutors accuse Van Dyke lawyers of striking blacks from jury because of their race


Racial tensions in the trial of Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke surfaced during jury selection Wednesday when prosecutors twice accused the defense of systematically removing black people from the panel — and the defense in turn accused prosecutors of booting white men.

Judge Vincent Gaughan ultimately swatted down the allegations but not before some fraught exchanges among attorneys.

“I’m not kicking him off because he’s black,” Randy Rueckert, one of Van Dyke’s attorneys, said after the defense removed a young African-American man from the jury. “I have a right to say I don’t want him to be on my jury. … This case isn’t about black and white. The press has made it about black and white, for gosh sake.”

Long-standing legal precedent holds that attorneys cannot remove individuals from jury consideration solely based on race. So far, there have been 10 jurors selected: five whites, three Hispanics, one African-American and one person of Asian descent.

Video of Van Dyke, who is white, fatally shooting black teen Laquan McDonaldbrought Chicago’s long-simmering racial strife to the forefront when it was released by court order in 2015, more than a year after the shooting.

Van Dyke now faces trial on first-degree murder charges. As the second full day of jury questioning concluded, the defense so far has used five of its seven discretionary challenges — all to remove minorities from the jury.

And with jury selection resuming Thursday morning, the defense is closing in on a crucial decision: whether to have Gaughan or the selected jurors decide Van Dyke’s fate.

Illinois law holds that the defense can unilaterally choose a bench trial, at which Gaughan alone would decide Van Dyke’s fate, up until the 12th juror is sworn in. With 10 jurors already selected, attorneys must make their choice known soon.

The first person questioned Wednesday morning was made the jury’s sole black member. The woman, who works as a FedEx driver and appears to be in her 50s, said she had seen the police dashboard camera video that captured Van Dyke shooting 17-year-old McDonald 16 times.

During questioning Wednesday, the woman said she couldn’t say that Van Dyke was guilty.

“But I had an opinion about how many times the shots went off,” she said. “I can’t lie about that. … That’s a lot of shots.”

Before the African-American woman was picked for the jury, prosecutors made their first accusation that the defense was illegally trying to remove minorities as jurors.

It happened after Van Dyke’s attorneys asked Gaughan to strike the woman from the jury pool for “cause,” noting that upon questioning she said the video of McDonald's shooting was "horrific" and she was surprised it was shown on television.

Prosecutor Marilyn Hite Ross immediately made what is called a Batson challenge — essentially accusing Van Dyke’s legal team of illegally using its discretionary strikes to remove jurors based solely on their race. The defense had bounced two African-Americans on the first day of jury selection Monday.

But Gaughan denied the motion, saying the defense had put forward “race-neutral explanations” for trying to remove people from consideration. He then refused to remove the African-American woman for cause.

After that, neither side opted to use a peremptory strike — which allows the prosecution or defense to reject a juror without giving a reason — so the woman was selected to sit on the jury.

The second Batson challenge of the day came after the defense used a strike on a 22-year-old black man who had not fully completed a jury questionnaire and said he recalled a couple of posts from acquaintances on Facebook that mentioned Van Dyke had "murdered" somebody. He said he did not respond to the posts and that it did not affect his opinion. The man also said he had not seen the video.

After the defense listed its reasons for striking three black jurors in two days, the judge shot down the prosecutors’ second Batson allegation. Jury selection continued — only to have the defense raise allegations against prosecutors, twice accusing them of striking white males. The judge rejected the allegations, saying attorneys on both sides had not shown a pattern of bias.

It wasn’t the first time Herbert has been accused of trying to dismiss potential jurors based on race while defending charges against a Chicago police officer.

Just last year, a federal judge found that Herbert had improperly used a peremptory challenge against an African-American jury candidate in the case against Marco Proano, an officer accused of excessive force for firing into a car filled with black teens in 2013, wounding two.

In his ruling during a sidebar discussion, U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman said it was suspicious that Herbert had asked for time to respond to the Batson challenge by prosecutors. If Herbert had a valid reason, the judge said, he should have been able to articulate it right away, according to a recently unsealed transcript.

Herbert tried to object. He said he’d asked for time because he was “angry” at being accused by prosecutors and had to go to the bathroom to “cool off.”

But Feinerman noted another huge red flag that went beyond the allegations made by prosecutors. He said when Herbert listed his peremptory challenges, the first four strikes he requested were for the only four blacks left in the jury pool.

The African-American man whom Herbert had tried to strike from the pool was put back on the jury. Proano was ultimately convicted on all counts.

Apart from the female FedEx driver — currently the lone black juror — panelists chosen Wednesday include an aspiring Chicago police officer, a gun-rights supporter who expressed support for police but had not seen the shooting video, a Hispanic grandmother and a white woman whose family has close ties to the judge’s family.

They join the jurors selected Monday: a stay-at-home mother, a financial analyst, a record keeper, a Navy wife and an older man whose church has encouraged its members to speak with black people about their experiences with racial injustice.


The selection process is moving faster than anticipated — some had expected the questioning phase to last a week or more. But attorneys are on track to pick a full jury in about three days.

Several people were removed from consideration Wednesday when they said they could not be impartial.

One middle-aged white man said he told his wife that the officer was guilty when he first saw the video.

“The guy was walking away, seemed to be walking away from the officer,” he said. “(I’ve) seen the officer coming up and started shooting.”

One woman drew chuckles after she said her low opinion of both prosecutors and defense attorneys would color her view of the evidence.

She views Illinois as corrupt and said she suspects some defense attorneys take on cases only for the “notoriety.”

Prosecutors moved to dismiss her for cause, and defense attorneys did not object.

A white woman in her 30s also was dismissed Wednesday after she said she is married to a reporter who won an award for stories about McDonald’s shooting and doubted she could be fair to Van Dyke.

Asked to look at Van Dyke and tell him whether she could give him a fair trial, she said, “I don’t think so.”

Van Dyke never looked up at her.

Gaughan has led the questioning of potential jurors individually in a room behind his courtroom with the help of prosecutors and Van Dyke’s attorneys. Van Dyke as well as a few reporters and spectators looked on.

Some 200 people filled out an extensive jury questionnaire last week. Ultimately, attorneys need to select 12 regular jurors and four alternates to hear Van Dyke’s case.

Police dashboard camera video released in 2015 by court order shows Van Dyke opening fire within seconds of exiting his squad car as the 17-year-old McDonald, holding a knife, appeared to walk away from police, contradicting reports from officers at the scene that the teen had threatened officers with the weapon. Van Dyke emptied his gun, shooting McDonald 16 times.

The release of the video sparked months of protests and political upheaval.

Van Dyke became the first Chicago police officer in decades to be charged with murder for an on-duty fatality. He faces six counts of first-degree murder, 16 counts of aggravated battery and one count of official misconduct in McDonald’s death.
 
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/jason-van-dyke-trial-jury-selection-continues-laquan-mcdonald/

1st African-American selected for Van Dyke jury, along with Latina CPD applicant

It’s the most crucial strategic decision so far for Jason Van Dyke’s defense team — and his lawyers could be forced to make it as early as Thursday.

Should they put the fate of the indicted Chicago police officer in the hands of the jurors they’ve spent two days questioning? Or should they ask Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan to decide whether Van Dyke murdered Laquan McDonald?

That decision looms because 10 of the 12 jurors who would hear the case have now been chosen. Five were picked Wednesday — a black woman, who is the first African-American on the jury, a white man, a white woman and two Latina women, one of who is applying to be a Chicago police officer and wanted to be a cop since she was 12.

On Wednesday, when Dan Herbert pressed the judge about their deadline to make a decision, the judge told him, “when we get to 11, you’d better make a decision.” The judge soon relented, and said he’d give the defense team a night to think about it.

They fell one short of 11 jurors Wednesday, but one more pick could put Van Dyke’s lawyers on the spot — especially if it comes early Thursday.

Meanwhile, racial overtones exposed themselves when prosecutors twice accused Van Dyke’s lawyers of discriminating against jurors because of their race. Twice, Gaughan found Van Dyke’s lawyers had “race neutral” reasons for striking jurors.

“This case isn’t about black and white,” defense attorney Randy Rueckert insisted. “The press has made it black and white, for gosh sake.”

But Rueckert then turned the tables on prosecutors, twice accusing them of striking only white men. The judge shot him down.

Several legal experts predict Van Dyke will opt for the judge alone hearing the case — in part because Van Dyke will likely lean on a technical defense involving Illinois’ use-of-deadly-force law.

Herbert has argued the McDonald shooting was legally justified in part because McDonald had committed a forcible felony the night he was killed and used a deadly weapon, a knife, to try to escape — key factors in the law.

A judge would more likely set aside emotion and consider whether Herbert is legally correct.

Still, the notoriety of the Van Dyke case could upend conventional wisdom. While judges may be sympathetic to legal arguments, they might also consider community reaction — and the voters’ wrath at retention time.

“I think this is a jury case,” said Steve Greenberg, a veteran defense lawyer who represented former Bolingbrook police officer Drew Peterson in his trial for the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.

“You take a bench trial when you have a case where you’re going to be arguing more subtle points of law, because with a judge, it’s lawyers talking to lawyers,” Greenberg said.

Despite the shooting video — sure to be powerful prosecution evidence — Greenberg said Van Dyke could have better odds taking his chances with a jury that could deadlock or acquit him.

Van Dyke’s best hope may be for a single hold-out juror — likely sympathetic to cops. A hung jury or mistrial would force the special prosecutor to consider whether to take Van Dyke to trial again.

Gaughan is a decorated veteran with strict rules in his courtroom. But he also rose through the ranks of the Cook County Public Defender’s office before becoming a judge.

He also apparently dislikes bench trials, going so far as to recuse himself when defendants go that route.

One veteran attorney with experience before Gaughan said simply: “I just don’t think Gaughan finds bench trials interesting.”


Jury selection on Wednesday had its own fascinating moments.

The Latina in her 20s applying to be a Chicago cop said she’d have no worries justifying her verdict to her police bosses. She has passed the written exam and faces the physical exam and interviews.

“No one is above the law,” she wrote in her questionnaire.

Another juror selected Wednesday, a white man in his late 20s or early 30s, said on the jury questionnaire he hadn’t heard of the case. But under prompting by Gaughan he conceded he had.

The man said he supports cops and the 2nd Amendment.

Another juror selected, a white woman in her 50s or 60s, has close ties to the judge’s family. Gaughan’s brother is the godfather of the woman’s sister, she said. Another of Gaughan’s brothers stood up in her father’s wedding.

When she saw the shooting video, she said her reaction was: “A lot of shots were fired.”


No attorney objected to her being on the jury.
 
https://wgntv.com/2018/09/13/fop-president-speaks-out-in-support-of-jason-van-dyke/

Police union president shifts blame to city in Laquan McDonald shooting


CHICAGO — Kevin Graham, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, is speaking out in support of Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke.

Van Dyke has been charged with first-degree murder, official misconduct and aggravated battery in the 2014 slaying of Laquan McDonald. So far, 10 jurors have been selected in Van Dyke's trial, and jury selection is scheduled to continue Thursday.

"Mr. Van Dyke did not wake up that morning, premeditated, thinking he was going to kill anyone," Graham said, addressing the media outside of the Leighton Criminal Court Building.

Graham said he believes Van Dyke's First Amendment rights have been violated since he's been unable to defend himself in the media due to a decorum order issued by the court. Graham also blamed city officials for not shouldering any blame for what happened.

"At some point, the city of Chicago should have taken some responsibility for what occurred that night — for the lack of supervision, the lack of personnel and the lack of equipment that could have been made this outcome very different," Graham said. "And yet we've heard nothing from the city of Chicago about that. And that could change the outcome of this trial."

Graham also said he would like to see a change of venue for the trial, which Van Dyke's defense team has long argued for, saying it would be impossible to find impartial jurors in Chicago. Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan has yet to rule on a motion to move the trial.

DA9429E5-B24F-4400-B1B5-5F54D86F8BE7.gif
 
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...nald-jason-van-dyke-trial-20180913-story.html

Jury picked in Van Dyke trial; defense must now decide if it will opt for bench trial instead






The jurors who could decide one of the biggest murder cases in Cook County history have been selected, with instructions to come back Monday for opening statements.

But a crucial question still hangs over the trial of Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke for the slaying of Laquan McDonald: Will the jury even be needed?

After months of hedging, Van Dyke’s attorneys were instructed by Judge Vincent Gaughan to return Friday to declare whether they want the case in the hands of the jury or Gaughan alone.

The announcement could put an end to the game of legal chess match that has played out in court for months. Gaughan has delayed ruling on the defense request to move the trial out of Chicago until after jury selection. The defense, in turn, has postponed a decision on whether to have a jury decide the case at all.

It is extraordinarily rare that this critical choice has been left open at such a late stage in such high-profile proceedings. Whatever Van Dyke decides could alter the fundamental dynamic of the trial.

Jury selection was completed Thursday afternoon more quickly than many anticipated. Twelve jurors plus five alternates were chosen over the course of three days of face-to-face questioning. After some 200 people were brought in to fill out questionnaires last week, only about 55 people were ultimately questioned.

The 12 jurors include seven whites, three Hispanics, one Asian-American and one African-American. Among their ranks are a FedEx driver, a financial analyst, a stay-at-home mom and an aspiring cop.

But police officers facing felony charges in Cook County have overwhelmingly opted for bench trials at which a judge alone decides the defendant’s fate.

Under Illinois law, Van Dyke can unilaterally switch to a bench trial at any point before the 12th juror is sworn in.

Gaughan on Thursday swore in the 11th juror selected — but said he would postpone swearing in the 12th juror and the alternates until Van Dyke had decided whether a jury is necessary. He gave the defense until Friday to announce its choice.

Daniel Herbert, Van Dyke’s lead attorney, told Gaughan on Wednesday that he was waiting to see how the judge would rule on his request to move the trial outside Cook County before declaring a decision on a jury trial. No ruling was made before court adjourned Thursday afternoon.

The defense has long argued that the extensive and dramatic publicity surrounding the case has ruined Van Dyke’s chances of getting a fair jury. But the judge said he would hold off ruling until the jury selection process had started, hinting he believed fair jurors could be found in Cook County.

The decision rests solely with Van Dyke, who has seemed uncomfortable and worn down throughout jury selection. He huddled with his attorneys for nearly an hour after court Wednesday when the judge signaled he would want a decision by week’s end.

Van Dyke, 40, a veteran of nearly 13 years with the Police Department at the time of the shooting, faces six counts of first-degree murder, 16 counts of aggravated battery and one count of official misconduct for the October 2014 shooting.

Police dashboard camera video released by court order more than a year later showed Van Dyke opening fire within seconds of exiting his squad car as McDonald, holding a knife, appeared to walk away from police, contradicting reports from officers at the scene that the black teen had threatened officers with the weapon.

The release of the graphic video led to months of protests and political upheaval.

Whether the officer should have a judge or jury hear the case has been a favorite parlor game among courthouse lawyers in recent months, with many surprised that the officer would consider leaving it to a dozen laypeople to decide his fate.

Self-defense cases are inherently tricky because jurors must interpret the law and decide how it applies to the defendant’s actions. The task can prove so complicated that defendants often seek bench trials, so a judge can handle the legal questions more easily.

“I would be hesitant to put these questions in front of 12 laypeople. If you do that, you have to hope they understand the law as it was explained to them,” veteran defense attorney Joseph Lopez said Thursday. “When it’s a question of law, you usually want a judge to hear the case. Ideally, that strips all of the emotion from the case and just makes it about what the law says.”

A judge’s knowledge of the law, however, also could be a detriment in a trial like this, experts said. Even if the judge finds Van Dyke not guilty of first-degree murder, he could still convict him of a lesser offense such as second-degree murder that carries a much lighter penalty.

Jurors can do that only if either the defense or prosecution request it as an option. And, even then, they may not understand the law well enough to deal with lesser charges.

“If you take a bench trial in this case, you’re already conceding that he could be found guilty of something else,” longtime defense attorney Steven Greenberg said. “If you want to walk out of that building with a 100 percent not guilty, I think you have to go with a jury.”

Unlike the dozen strangers selected after relatively short interviews, the defense team knows the judge and understands how he thinks after spending nearly three years on this case. Gaughan, a former public defender, has a reputation in the courthouse for his legal acumen, his deep-rooted sense of fairness and indifference to public criticism — three characteristics that could make him a good choice to hear a case that has roiled the city for years.

At 77, Gaughan is not expected to run for re-election when his term expires in 2022.

“If there’s one judge in that courthouse who won’t worry about the fallout from his decision, it’s Judge Gaughan,” Greenberg said. “He’ll do what he thinks is right.”

But Gaughan has an erratic temperament and has clashed frequently with the defense, oftentimes barking at Herbert and questioning his interpretation of the law. Veteran attorneys, however, say Gaughan doesn’t factor past grievances into his decisions.

“I’ve had Judge Gaughan yell at me for being late or doing something silly that he didn’t like,” Lopez said. “Sure, he gets mad at me, but he’ll still rule in my favor.”

The case’s 11th and 12th jurors were selected quickly Thursday morning: a white man in his 30s with training in engineering and a white woman who works as a CT scan technologist.

By Thursday afternoon, five alternates were also picked for the jury: a black woman in her 50s who works for County Clerk David Orr’s office and expressed some concern for protesters outside the courthouse because “you don’t know what they’re going to do”; a black man in his 60s who wore a Bears jersey and is a retired security guard from the Art Institute of Chicago; a white woman in her 20s or 30s who works in marketing for a beer company; a Hispanic man in his 40s who drives a truck for FedEx; and a white woman in her late 30s who works in marketing for a large downtown law firm.

Before the 11th and 12th jurors were picked Thursday, three others were quickly dismissed before they even made it into the room behind Gaughan’s courtroom where the jury selection has been playing out since Monday. One was booted because she wrote in her questionnaire that she believed Van Dyke was guilty and had “murdered Laquan instead of using other tactics.”

In the process of selecting the 12 jurors, each side used just five of their seven allotted discretionary strikes.

Smh @ only one black juror...
 
Looks like it will be a bench trial. T ch e judge seems to want it. He's bending over backwards and giving them extra time to decide for what I wonder.
 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-officer-wants-jury-trial-chicago/1301756002/

Chicago cop who shot Laquan McDonald opts for jury trial despite concerns about jury bias

CHICAGO— Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer facing murder charges for the controversial shooting death of Laquan McDonald, made the surprising decision Friday to have his case decided by a jury.

With the move, Van Dyke bucked the trend for officers facing serious charges who have favored having a judge — arguably more likely to understand the intricacy of law and seemingly less likely to be persuaded by dramatic or emotional testimony — decide their fate.

For months, defense attorneys complained that Van Dyke, who police video shows fired 16 shots at the 17-year-old black suspect, had been treated as a pariah in an avalanche of media coverage and that it was impossible for him to get a fair jury trial in Chicago.

But after cobbling together a jury panel that included a young Latina woman who is aspiring to be a Chicago cop, a gun rights proponent who relayed his “respect for officers,” and a stay-at-home mom who spoke positively of officers trying to “do their jobs.”

"The defendant will opt for a jury trial," said Daniel Hebert, Van Dyke’s lead defense attorney, during a brief hearing Friday.

Recent history — both in Chicago and around the country — suggests that police officers on trial in emotionally-charged, high-stake cases have fared well by taking the bench trial route.

Of the 94 non-federal sworn law enforcement officers in the country who have been charged with murder or manslaughter in an on-duty shooting incident since 2005, 17 have been convicted by a jury, 16 have pleaded guilty, but none has been convicted by a judge, according to Philip Stinson, an associate professor of criminology at Bowling Green State University.

For the 42 officers whose cases ended in a non-conviction—22 were acquitted at a jury trial, nine were acquitted at a bench trial, four saw charges dismissed by a judge, six saw charges dropped by a prosecutor, and in one instance a “no true bill” was returned from a grand jury, according to Stinson. Nineteen cases are still pending.

Van Dyke’s lawyers are still hoping that Judge Vincent Gaughan will agree at the last-moment to move the trial. The judge, however, said that he won’t rule on the change of venue until after all jurors are sworn in, which is expected to be completed on Monday.

The judge also told attorneys to prepare to give their opening statements Monday.

The racial composition of the jury includes seven white jurors, three Hispanics, one African-American and one Asian-American. Cook County, which includes the 5.2 million residents living in Chicago and inner ring suburbs, is 42.3 percent white, 25 percent Hispanic, 24 black and 7.7 percent Asian.

Van Dyke’s team used their first five peremptory challenges—an objection made to a juror without needing to state a reason— to excuse three black candidates, one Hispanic woman and a man who appeared to be of South Asian descent. The prosecution used peremptory strikes against three candidates, all who were white.

Prosecutors complained after one young black candidate was excused by the defense team that race was factoring in how Van Dyke's attorney's used the peremptory challenges. The defense team turned the tables on prosecutors after they excused a white juror who said he had friends in his neighborhood who are cops.

“This case isn’t about black or white,” assistant defense attorney Randy Rueckert said. “The press has made it about black and white, for gosh sake.”

Andrea Lyon, a Valparaiso University Law School professor and former Cook County public defender, noted that Van Dyke’s lead attorney, Herbert, was accused of excluding black jurors for a different on-duty Chicago police shooting case heard in federal court last year.

Hebert denied he was using race as a factor in picking that jury for the case—in which a Chicago cop was convicted of using excessive force for shooting 16 times at a moving vehicle driven by teens—but the judge in that cases refused to allow him to use a peremptory challenge to excuse an African-American man, who was selected to become the 12th juror.

“It’s very disturbing,” Lyon said. “It’s not typical of Cook County. Typically, you see better representation of minorities on juries.”

The case, one of several deadly confrontations with police throughout the country that’s spurred a larger conversation about policing in black communities, marks the first time since 1981 that a Chicago police officer has gone to trial on murder charges.

Van Dyke appears in the police video, which the city was forced to release by court order 400 days after the incident and on the same day he was charged, to shoot McDonald as he was walking away from police. Thirteen of the 16 shots were fired while McDonald, who was holding a small knife, was already on the ground.
 
Officers, including Van Dyke, were called to the area after receiving reports that McDonald, who had a history of metal illness and had PCP in his system, had been breaking into trucks. The teen slashed the tire of a police vehicle not long before he was shot on a city street. Van Dyke told investigators after the incident he acted in self-defense.

Van Dyke’s attorneys went to great lengths to make the case that finding an unbiased panel could not be done. The defense team commissioned a poll that found 98.5 percent of black respondents who had seen police dash cam video of the officer firing 16 shots at the black teen believed Van Dyke, who is white, was not in danger when he fired.

But with only one black juror among the 12 hearing the case (as well one African-American retiree picked among five alternates), the defense team’s concern is minimized.

Police officers in several recent high-profile use of force cases have been acquitted after deciding to seek bench trials.

-- In February, New York City Police Sgt. Hugh Barry was acquitted of murder, manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in a bench trial for the fatal 2016 shooting of Deborah Danner, a mentally ill woman who was gunned down in her apartment.

-- Last year, St. Louis judge Timothy Wilson found former police officer Jason Stockley not guilty on charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action for the shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith. The acquittal spurred violent protest in the Midwest city.

-- In Baltimore, the 2016 acquittals in bench trials of three police officers charged in the controversial death of Freddie Gray, an African-American man who died of a neck injury while in police custody, flustered the local prosecutor. After the acquittals, Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby dropped charges against three other officers involved in the incident and suggested Maryland laws change so prosecutors could have a say in whether defendants have a bench trial.

"There's a constitutional right to a jury,” Mosby told the Baltimore Sun. “You know, federally, they actually have the option — the prosecutor has to agree whether or not they're going to proceed on a bench trial. We don't have that option here, right, so our hands are tied."

In Chicago, where many judges were once state prosecutors who worked closely with police, defense attorneys for accused cops have found judges receptive to their arguments and not easily stirred by provocative testimony.

In late 2015, Cook County Judge Diane Gordon Cannon acquitted Chicago Police Cmdr. Glenn Evans for aggravated battery and official misconduct charges stemming from accusations he shoved his gun down a suspect’s throat and threatened to kill him.

Cannon, a former prosecutor, told the accuser, Ricky Williams, his testimony in court "taxes the gullibility of the credulous" and threw out the charges. Williams DNA was found on Evans’ weapon.

Months earlier, former Chicago police officer Dante Servin, who was off-duty when he shot into a small crowd of people after getting into an argument, saw his involuntary manslaughter charges for the death of 22-year-old Rekia Boyd thrown out by Judge Dennis Porter before his trial could even be completed.

Porter, a former prosecutor, said he found Servin not guilty of involuntary manslaughter because it was an improper charge. The judge said prosecutors should have charged the officer with a more serious offense, because Servin acted “beyond reckless” and could not be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter under the state statute.

In the Van Dyke case, Gaughan and defense attorneys have frequently clashed.

During the leadup to the trial, Gaughan, 77, has been a stickler for following legal protocol and has frequently admonished Van Dyke’s attorney, Herbert, for missteps.

But he also showed a measure of leniency with Van Dyke earlier this month, when the special prosecutor in the case argued for the officer’s bail to be revoked or raised after he gave media interviews despite a gag order prohibiting him from doing so.

Gaughan agreed that Van Dyke violated a term of bail conditions which required him to follow all court orders, including the gag order. But he only made the officer add $200 to the $150,000 he’d already posted.

Lyon, the former public defender, noted the political tumult the case has already caused may have factored in the Van Dyke's team's decision to go with a jury trial. The former county prosecutor was ousted at the polls in the months after the release of the video, the police superintendent was fired, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel (who announced earlier this month he won't seek a third term in office) saw his standing in the city's black community plummet.

In Cook County, judges are elected officials.

“The political pressure would be enormous, and if he’s hoping for an acquittal…taking a bench trial is not going to make that happen," Lyon said.

Gaughan also had his own confrontation with police when he was a young man recently returned to Chicago as a decorated Vietnam war veteran, according to the Chicago Tribune.

In April 1970, Gaughan was charged with aggravated assault, unlawful use of a weapon, failure to register a weapon, and discharging a firearm in the city, according to the paper’s account soon after the incident.

It was unclear how the case was disposed of, but the Tribune’s account detailed how police officers showed extraordinary restraint in the incident that started when Gaughan allegedly fired a weapon from his parent’s home and shattered windows of his neighbor’s house.

When police arrived at the scene to interview the neighbor couple, Gaughan fired two more shots that pierced the dining room.

It’s unclear why Gaughan fired the weapon (the judge has declined to comment and the Cook County Circuit Court doesn’t have records of the 48-year-old case). But his father told the newspaper at the time that Gaughan had been agitated and was having trouble adjusting to civilian life after returning from the war.

When police officers arrived at Gaughan’s house, he was locked away in his room and said he wanted to talk to a priest. When the priest arrived, he reportedly said: "Wait, I want a policeman to come too. An Irish sergeant."

The incident was defused, and Gaughan was taken into custody.
 
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...nald-jason-van-dyke-trial-20180914-story.html

Three days before trial's start, Van Dyke's attorneys opt for jury trial after all


In a choice with potentially far-reaching consequences for the biggest Cook County murder case in years, Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke’s attorney announced Friday that a jury will decide his fate.

The long-awaited decision came just days before opening statements and after 12 jurors and five alternates had already been selected — an extraordinarily late date for such a consequential choice.

Most legal experts expected him to take a bench trial, as most Chicago police officers charged with criminal wrongdoing traditionally have done. Conventional wisdom holds that judges can more easily strip the emotion from such highly charged cases and focus on the complicated legal questions at hand.

Van Dyke, however, presumably saw something in the jurors that suggested he had a better chance of a straight not-guilty verdict with them deciding the case.

“I think he’s looked at his jury, now that they’ve all been picked, and said, ‘I don’t want to do any jail time. I’m going for broke, I’m rolling the dice and I’m going for an acquittal,’ ” Irving Miller, a former Cook County prosecutor and longtime criminal defense attorney, told the Tribune Friday.

Van Dyke is the first Chicago police officer in decades to be charged with murder in an on-duty fatality. Dashboard camera video of him shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times as the teen appeared to walk away from police roiled the city on its court-ordered release more than a year later.

Friday’s announcement would seem to conclude a lengthy legal face-off between the defense and Judge Vincent Gaughan. The judge had delayed ruling on a defense request to move the trial from Chicago until after jury selection. The defense, in turn, postponed its decision on whether to have a jury decide the case at all.

Gaughan continued to hold off ruling Friday on whether to move the trial out of Cook County, saying he would do so after he swore in the 12th juror and five alternates when they return to the courthouse Monday. It appears highly unlikely that Gaughan would agree to move the trial at this point, however.

Under Illinois law, Van Dyke could unilaterally switch to a bench trial at any point before the 12th juror was sworn in. So far, only 11 of the 12 have taken the oath. That means the defense technically could still change course Monday morning.

The decision rested solely with Van Dyke. With this particular burden lifted, Van Dyke — who looked sleep-deprived and often slipped into a thousand-yard stare during jury selection — appeared more relaxed during Friday’s brief hearing. He smiled as he walked into the courtroom and looked better rested than he had in weeks. When court adjourned for the day, he hugged attorney Daniel Herbert and smiled at his father.

The 12 jurors picked for the racially charged case — Van Dyke is white and McDonald was black — include just one African-American. The remainder of the jury is composed of seven whites, three Hispanics and one Asian-American.

While the defense attempted to strike several of the current jurors during the selection process, some indicated strong support for law enforcement during questioning. One juror, a Hispanic woman, is even an aspiring Chicago police officer.

If the jury does convict him, Van Dyke would have a better chance on appeal than if he was found guilty by Gaughan, Miller said.

“Appellate courts are much more likely to reverse a jury verdict for whatever reason than they are to reverse a judge’s ruling,” Miller said. “Judges are presumed to know the law and to apply the law correctly. That’s not the case with a jury.”

The defense now faces another key decision, said longtime defense attorney Robert Loeb, who teaches at DePaul University College of Law.

“The biggest issue now is to what extent is (the defense) going for a total not guilty from the jury and to what extent will he submit the less serious offense of second-degree murder to the jury for their consideration,” he said.

The unique way Gaughan handled the jury questioning means the defense got a rare preview of the jurors before choosing whether to have them decide the case. They must have liked something about the makeup of the jury, Loeb said.

“The defense has confidence that at least one juror will find justification for the shooting,” he said in reference to the jury needing to be unanimous to convict.

Still, like many legal analysts familiar with how cases go in Cook County, Miller said he was surprised by Van Dyke’s decision, particularly because Gaughan is considered a “tough but fair” judge who would decide the facts of McDonald’s shooting without emotion.

As far as legal strategy, Miller said it’s simple: Put the jury in Van Dyke’s shoes that night and convince them that no matter how bad the video might look, he was “a police officer doing what he was trained to do.”

“He’s out there on the street. There is someone standing there with a knife,” Miller said. “He didn’t know what was going on. He reacted instantly, and that’s not murder.”

Van Dyke is believed to be the first Chicago police officer charged with an on-duty murder to opt for a jury to hear his case. The last time an officer stood trial for murder was 37 years ago — and it was a judge who heard the case.

Officers Louis Klisz and Fred Earullo were charged in the 1980 beating death of 51-year-old Richard Ramey after he was arrested for smoking on a CTA platform.

After hearing the evidence, Judge Arthur Cieslik ruled there was reasonable doubt whether the officers had “clear intent” to kill Ramey. He found them guilty instead of involuntary manslaughter. Klisz got eight years in prison, while Earullo was sentenced to less than three years.

More recently, two Chicago police officers accused of wrongdoing in other high-profile Cook County cases were acquitted in bench trials. But some of the biggest court victories elsewhere in the country for law enforcement officers involved in fatal shootings came from juries — including the officers who shot Philando Castile in Minnesota and Terence Crutcher in Oklahoma.

However, just last month a Texas jury convicted a former police officer in the slaying of an unarmed black teen.

If history is a good indicator, Van Dyke is taking a risk tapping a jury to decide his fate rather than a judge.

Of the 94 nonfederal sworn law enforcement officers in the country who have faced murder or manslaughter allegations for on-duty fatal shootings dating back to 2005, 33 cases resulted in convictions, but none were decided by a judge, according to Philip Stinson, a Bowling Green State University associate professor of criminology.

Of the 33 convictions, 16 of the officers pleaded guilty and 17 were found guilty by a jury. The convictions were often for a lesser offense, Stinson said.

The criminal cases for 42 of the officers ended in acquittals, dismissals or in one case a grand jury passed on charges.

Stinson said the criminal cases for 19 of the 94 officers still are pending. The Van Dyke case is counted among those 19 — and is the only one of the 94 from Illinois.

Though Van Dyke’s decision runs contrary to Stinson’s data, the researcher cautioned each case is unique and different.

“There’s no right or wrong answer here,” Stinson said. “I don’t know what the (defense’s) decision process was, but I’m sure these are very experienced trial lawyers and I think you just have to follow your gut sometimes.”

The researcher also chronicled whether the alleged offender in the fatal shooting cases was armed with a dangerous weapon — such as a knife in McDonald’s case.

Of the 33 convictions, only 18 percent involved a weapon. Of the 42 non-convictions, 33 percent of those cases involved someone armed with a weapon.

With that history in the background, community activists are watching the Van Dyke proceedings closely.

“For me, it’s about three years in the making,” said William Calloway, who is part of a coalition of groups organizing demonstrations during the trial. “I’m cautiously optimistic about this trial.”

Gaughan noted in court Friday that protesters have been peaceful, a point Calloway echoed and urged to continue after the hearing.

“ ‘Justice for Laquan’ is a nonviolent movement. It’s a peaceful movement,” he said. “Anybody that comes out to demonstrate, we ask you to come out and be aggressive. Come out and be passionate. Come out and exercise your First Amendment (rights), but please come out and be peaceful.”

Calloway said he would have liked to see more diversity on the jury — a point he made while urging black residents to register to vote to boost diversity in potential jury pools.

Van Dyke, 40, a veteran of nearly 13 years with the Police Department at the time of the shooting, faces six counts of first-degree murder, 16 counts of aggravated battery and one count of official misconduct for the October 2014 shooting.
 
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/jason-van-dyke-trial-tiffany-wife-laquan-mcdonald-interview/

On eve of Jason Van Dyke's murder trial in Laquan McDonald shooting, his wife says she's 'petrified'

Tiffany Van Dyke ‘petrified’ ahead of her husband’s murder trial




On the eve of her husband’s trial for the murder of Laquan McDonald, the wife of Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke says she is resigned to the prospect that her husband could land in prison and fears that the case will not get a fair hearing.

Opening statements are set to begin Monday morning at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, more than two years after Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder for shooting McDonald 16 times. His wife, Tiffany, says she will be in court each day.

“I am absolutely petrified,” Tiffany Van Dyke said in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times on Saturday at the Fraternal Order of Police headquarters in the West Loop. “He has the possibility, since he’s chosen a trial, of going to prison for 45 years to life. I’m absolutely petrified to lose my husband.”

Tiffany Van Dyke made her first appearance in the courtroom gallery two weeks ago, when her husband faced the prospect of being jailed for the first time since his 2015 arrest. Prosecutors had asked Judge Vincent Gaughan to lock up Jason Van Dyke for giving interviews to the press just days before the start of jury selection. In the end, Jason Van Dyke would end up cycling in and out of the jail in about an hour, after Gaughan registered his disapproval by boosting Van Dyke’s $1.5 million bond by $2,000.

The interviews earlier this month were the first time Jason Van Dyke had spoken publicly about the case, though Tiffany Van Dyke has given a handful of interviews in the years since her husband was charged. Her more recent interviews, she acknowledges, have been aimed at changing the image of her husband as a “racist, trigger-happy cop.”

Rev. Marvin Hunter, McDonald’s grand-uncle, has said he and McDonald’s mother also will be in court each day of the trial. The minister said he does not begrudge Van Dyke or his family their attempt to get their message out through the media — the message just is not the one he wants to hear.

“Jason Van Dyke has never apologized. He’s never admitted that he was wrong. He needs to do that for his own soul, not for me,” Hunter said. “His wife and his daughters, I have no problem with them. We do not want revenge. We just want justice.”

Tiffany Van Dyke said her husband seldom talked about work when he came home, even before the shooting in October 2014. When she returned home from work that day, her husband seemed distraught and told her “something happened at work.”

“I said ‘OK, is it serious?’ He said ‘Yes. Unfortunately, I had to take a life,’” she recalled. She said her husband did not go into details.

“The entire time I was talking to him, he was crying. I was crying. We were sitting there on the couch. And that’s all I asked him, I said ‘Did you do what you were trained to do?’ He said, ‘Absolutely.’ I said, ‘OK. We’ll go from there.’”

Tiffany Van Dyke said she didn’t watch the video of the shooting, likely to be the most powerful evidence introduced by the prosecution, until about six months ago.

“I knew I was going to go to court with my husband, I knew I was going to see it , and it was better to see it beforehand than to be shocked seeing it in the courtroom,” she said.

“I honestly could not really comment on the logistics of the actual video. I’m not the police. I have no idea where to begin.”

Tiffany Van Dyke said she weighed in on her husband’s decision to opt for a jury trial rather than having Judge Gaughan decide the verdict.

“I don’t think he can get a fair trial. I think this is completely politically motivated,” she said. “Do we put our fate in the hand of 12 jurors? That’s what we’ve decided. Or what he’s decided. Absolutely.

“I just hope they look at the evidence, really look and listen as this trial plays out.”

Tiffany Van Dyke said she prays for the McDonald family but had not spoken to any of McDonald’s relatives. Rev. Hunter said he expects about 20 family members will attend each day of the trial, including McDonald’s mother, Tina Hunter.

“I have not spoken with them. I don’t know if I ever will,” Tiffany Van Dyke said. “I pray for the family. I pray for Laquan McDonald, that he finally has peace. From everything I’ve ever seen and everything I’ve ever read, he was a troubled soul. He did not have an easy life.”

vandyke-091618-09-e1537039678743.jpg


tenor.gif
 
https://wgntv.com/2018/09/15/jason-van-dykes-wife-speaks-out-in-rare-pre-trial-interview/

Jason Van Dyke’s wife speaks out: ‘He did what he was trained to do’

CHICAGO — With a jury waiting in the wings and attorneys polishing their case, the trial of Jason Van Dyke is set to begin Monday.

In a rare television interview, WGN News spoke with Tiffany Van Dyke, the wife of the Chicago police officer charged with murder.

The mother of two is convinced her husband was just doing his job when he shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times on Oct. 20, 2014. She's nervous about potential prison time for her husband and blames Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for playing politics with Jason Van Dyke's life.

"They are missing the fact that he is a human being," Tiffany Van Dyke, 38, said. "He's just a man. He did his job. He did what he was trained to do by the city of Chicago."

She said her husband of 14 years is petrified about his impending murder trial, slated to begin Monday at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, 2650 S. California Ave. The case has displaced them from their home, forced them both to lose jobs and made them confront the harsh reality of possible prison time: Jason Van Dyke faces a minimum of 45 years if convicted of murder.

It's hard to swallow for a couple that has two daughters, aged 12 and 16.

"They know the outcome is that their father may never come home after this," Tiffany Van Dyke said. "My daughter is a junior. He may never see her graduate high school. Weddings. Grandkids. ... They get it. They get the seriousness."

The officer's wife said she remembers that 2014 evening like it was yesterday: "I sat next to him on the couch. I looked at him and he was crying. I said to him, 'Did you do your job?' And he said yes. 'What you were trained to do?' Yes. I said, 'That's all I need to know.'"

She continued: "You learn not to ask. As a police officer's wife, you do. You learn not to ask the questions."

Tiffany Van Dyke said she can't believe her husband is accused of racism or being trigger-happy. Her brother-in-law is African-American.
Her step-mother is Hispanic. And this was her husband's first time firing his gun on the job after 14 years on the force. He worked in some of Chicago's roughest neighborhoods over the years.

"He did not know going into that incident what race that young man was," she said. "He did not know he was coming up on an African-American male. He knew he was coming up on a male wielding a knife, high on drugs. He was out there to protect and serve. It had nothing to do with race."

She insists her husband is not a murder. She believes Emanuel and police brass are playing politics with her husband's life.


"Straight politics," she said. "From the top man himself, down to the brass. Rahm Emanuel. Anita Alvarez. ... He's a political scapegoat for the city of Chicago."

Tiffany Van Dyke said she's scared and angry, and is simply trying to take things one day at a time. She will be by her husband's side each day in court and wants to be present for her children.

If her husband walks free following the high-profile, racially charged trial, she knows one thing: "We won't be safe here. ... I have to pick up and leave, leave all of our family, leave all of our friends, and start over. And in my eyes, as long as I have my husband standing by my side, that's all I need."

Jason Van Dyke is charged with first-degree murder, official misconduct and aggravated battery with a firearm. According to prosecutors, McDonald was stealing car radios and was armed with a 3-inch blade when Chicago police officers in Archer Heights called in a radio request for a Taser on Oct. 20, 2014. An autopsy later revealed McDonald had PCP in his system.

Van Dyke and his partner responded to the call, but never specified whether they had a Taser. Within seconds of arriving on the scene, Van Dyke pulled his gun and emptied his magazine into McDonald, shooting the teen 16 times. Video of the shooting, which was released via court order in November 2015, sparked massive protests.

E72578C2-4B8F-4A44-851D-C0687CF9C118.gif
 
The Sun Times newspaper and WGN tv station know exactly WTF they are doing by putting this type of shit out there right now. All it takes is one out the 12 and that man walks on that murder charge. They got 7 white people on that jury who more than likely read that article, saw that interview or both. Just drumming up white sympathy no matter how wrong that pig was.

That's some dirty shit.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top