Buried Alive: The Story of Police State Racism in Chicago
Chicago media care more about the safety of a killer cop and the Jesse Smollett saga than victims of the city’s rabidly racist police.
“Van Dyke’s heinous crime was all too consistent with a longstanding pattern of excessive force and even murder on the part of the Chicago Police Department.”
“I cannot bury my husband”-- Tiffany Van Dyke, wife of Jason Van Dyke, the murderer of Laquan McDonald
Among the many different forms taken by 21st century U.S.-American racism, one is the curious way in which white-owned corporate media and the criminal justice system racially differentiate worthy from unworthy victims.
Take the case of Jason Van Dyke, the white Chicago police officer who coldly executed the Black teenager Laquan McDonald on the evening of October 20th, 2014. The dash-cam videotape of the execution has been viewed by many millions of people.
There’s a reason the city’s police, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, and then Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvarez tried to keep the Laquan McDonald kill tape under wraps. The video didn’t lie. It displayed the senseless murder of a Black youth by a white cop. It showed Van Dyke blasting sixteen bullets into McDonald, who clearly posed no imminent threat to Van Dyke or anyone else. The fusillade continued as McDonald lay prone, smoke rising from his twitching body with each new shot.
This was no small political matter in the age of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, and Black Lives Matter.
Scanning Chicago area television and during and since Van Dyke finally came to trial last fall, you’d almost think that Van Dyke and his family were the real victims. Again and again, the city and metropolitan area’s residents have seen and heard the fallen officer’s tearful wife cry out against how her husband and family have been unjustly punished for something Van Dyke did “in the line of duty.” This was the basic position advanced by Van Dyke’s lawyer, Daniel Herbert, himself a white ex-Chicago police officer. Herbert worked local television, radio and press with the notion that Van Dyke was just another scared first-responder hero trying to do his job.
“A white racist Cook County Circuit Court Judge let Van Dyke off with a pathetically minor sentence.”
When the trial occurred, the videotape evidence was too strong to prevent Van Dyke from being convicted of second-degree murder. It wasn’t strong enough, however, to stop a white racist Cook County Circuit Court Judge, Vincent Gaughan, 77, from letting Van Dyke off with a pathetically minor sentence of “seven years,” certain to be whittled down to three or less with “time served” and other considerations.
Less than three years for a vicious and cold-blooded racist murder viewed by millions around the world.
After this revolting sentence was handed down last month. I heard Van Dyke’s audibly pleased lawyer talking to clearly sympathetic whites hosts on WGN radio about how traumatic the whole episode has been for “Jason” – and how wonderful it is that the killer would be “returned to his family” soon.
Herbert forget to add that Van Dyke will return alive and walking while Laquan was returned to his family in a box, his young body riddled with sixteen bullet holes.
Last week, Chicago corporate media broadcast Tiffany Van Dyke’s sobbing distress at learning that her husband had been roughed up a little in a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. Here is some reporting from Chicago’s CBS-affiliated television station :
“A day after learning former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was beaten in a federal prison in Connecticut, his wife demanded to know why he was transferred out of Illinois in the first place, and called on authorities to do a better job of protecting his safety as he serves a nearly 7-year sentence in the murder of Laquan McDonald….’I cannot and will not stand by somebody hurting my husband,’ Tiffany Van Dyke said Thursday morning, flanked by her husband’s attorneys. ‘We are done being hurt. I’m standing up for my husband right now because he can’t. He cannot stand up for himself and fight anymore. At the end of the day, I want my husband home. I need him to be safe,’ she added. ‘The next time this could happen, they could kill him. I cannot bury my husband.’ ….The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirms that Van Dyke was beaten, saying ‘minor injuries occurred.’ Van Dyke’s legal team said the former officer informed them of the attack on Tuesday, a week after he was transferred to Danbury Federal Correctional Institution, a low- to minimum-security facility. Van Dyke’s attorneys said they were not informed about the transfer until after it happened.”
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[email protected]
Chicago media care more about the safety of a killer cop and the Jesse Smollett saga than victims of the city’s rabidly racist police.
“Van Dyke’s heinous crime was all too consistent with a longstanding pattern of excessive force and even murder on the part of the Chicago Police Department.”
“I cannot bury my husband”-- Tiffany Van Dyke, wife of Jason Van Dyke, the murderer of Laquan McDonald
Among the many different forms taken by 21st century U.S.-American racism, one is the curious way in which white-owned corporate media and the criminal justice system racially differentiate worthy from unworthy victims.
Take the case of Jason Van Dyke, the white Chicago police officer who coldly executed the Black teenager Laquan McDonald on the evening of October 20th, 2014. The dash-cam videotape of the execution has been viewed by many millions of people.
There’s a reason the city’s police, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, and then Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvarez tried to keep the Laquan McDonald kill tape under wraps. The video didn’t lie. It displayed the senseless murder of a Black youth by a white cop. It showed Van Dyke blasting sixteen bullets into McDonald, who clearly posed no imminent threat to Van Dyke or anyone else. The fusillade continued as McDonald lay prone, smoke rising from his twitching body with each new shot.
This was no small political matter in the age of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, and Black Lives Matter.
Scanning Chicago area television and during and since Van Dyke finally came to trial last fall, you’d almost think that Van Dyke and his family were the real victims. Again and again, the city and metropolitan area’s residents have seen and heard the fallen officer’s tearful wife cry out against how her husband and family have been unjustly punished for something Van Dyke did “in the line of duty.” This was the basic position advanced by Van Dyke’s lawyer, Daniel Herbert, himself a white ex-Chicago police officer. Herbert worked local television, radio and press with the notion that Van Dyke was just another scared first-responder hero trying to do his job.
“A white racist Cook County Circuit Court Judge let Van Dyke off with a pathetically minor sentence.”
When the trial occurred, the videotape evidence was too strong to prevent Van Dyke from being convicted of second-degree murder. It wasn’t strong enough, however, to stop a white racist Cook County Circuit Court Judge, Vincent Gaughan, 77, from letting Van Dyke off with a pathetically minor sentence of “seven years,” certain to be whittled down to three or less with “time served” and other considerations.
Less than three years for a vicious and cold-blooded racist murder viewed by millions around the world.
After this revolting sentence was handed down last month. I heard Van Dyke’s audibly pleased lawyer talking to clearly sympathetic whites hosts on WGN radio about how traumatic the whole episode has been for “Jason” – and how wonderful it is that the killer would be “returned to his family” soon.
Herbert forget to add that Van Dyke will return alive and walking while Laquan was returned to his family in a box, his young body riddled with sixteen bullet holes.
Last week, Chicago corporate media broadcast Tiffany Van Dyke’s sobbing distress at learning that her husband had been roughed up a little in a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. Here is some reporting from Chicago’s CBS-affiliated television station :
“A day after learning former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was beaten in a federal prison in Connecticut, his wife demanded to know why he was transferred out of Illinois in the first place, and called on authorities to do a better job of protecting his safety as he serves a nearly 7-year sentence in the murder of Laquan McDonald….’I cannot and will not stand by somebody hurting my husband,’ Tiffany Van Dyke said Thursday morning, flanked by her husband’s attorneys. ‘We are done being hurt. I’m standing up for my husband right now because he can’t. He cannot stand up for himself and fight anymore. At the end of the day, I want my husband home. I need him to be safe,’ she added. ‘The next time this could happen, they could kill him. I cannot bury my husband.’ ….The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirms that Van Dyke was beaten, saying ‘minor injuries occurred.’ Van Dyke’s legal team said the former officer informed them of the attack on Tuesday, a week after he was transferred to Danbury Federal Correctional Institution, a low- to minimum-security facility. Van Dyke’s attorneys said they were not informed about the transfer until after it happened.”
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[email protected]