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