Mayor Emanuel — will throwing McCarthy under bus be enough?
Mayor Rahm Emanuel did the right thing by firing Police Superintendent Garry F. McCarthy in Chicago in connection with the execution-style killing of 17-year old Laquan McDonald.
But if there was a coverup in the aftermath of the callous close-range shooting of McDonald 16 times by officer Jason Van Dyke then the accountability and culpability certain goes higher.
Chicago prosecutors didn’t charge Van Dyke until recently, 13 months after he killed McDonald. Van Dyke shot the teenager, reported to have been holding a folding knife, when he was walking away from him and posing no danger.
He emptied his clip otherwise would have possibly shot the boy more than 16 times. Five other officers on the scene didn’t discharge their weapons.
It’s not news that Police Departments engage in coverups after wrongful killings of African Americans. We saw how after Eric Garner was killed last July in New York City by Daniel Pantaleo the police department initially was able to get even The New York Times to publish an article that suggested Garner died of obesity. We then saw how in Ferguson after Darren Wilson killed 18-year old Michael Brown rather than coverup something done in broad daylight the police there demonized Brown and pliant media went along focusing on the incident with cigars in the store as if that were justification for summary execution. The New York Times even proclaimed in an article that Brown was no angel.
In Charleston, South Carolina, the coverup of the execution of Walter Scott, shot multiple times by Michael Scott who target-practiced on his back, was only thwarted with the emergence of the video tape.
There are multiple examples throughout the country.
In Chicago it was only after a judge ordered the release of the video of McDonald’s killing that the world saw what really happened; and why the Chicago police and political leadership didn’t want the video publicized. So much so that the City signed off on a $5 million settlement with McDonald’s family even before a wrongful death lawsuit was filed.
Who made the decision to suppress the video? Who made the decision to approve payment of $5 million? There is nothing wrong with the payment of course — but payment plus suppression of video speaks to something else.
Protests erupted in the streets of New York and Ferguson after the killings of Garner and Brown, respectively. In Ferguson an investigation of the police department by the Department of Justice exposed how the City balanced its budget by generating revenue through fines written for bogus or manufactured “crimes.” It’s a department that should have been and still should be disbanded.
Was Chicago trying to avoid protests as well as the kind of scrutiny that the Ferguson police department was subjected to?
Was Mayor Emanuel so concerned that the fallout — if the video had been broadcast– could have jeopardized his re-election chances?
Who authorized, or engaged in, covering up evidence of the murder of McDonald; certainly these are also crimes.
McCarthy alone could not have handled this enterprise.
Emanuel said he dismissed McCarthy because he had “become an issue rather than dealing with the issue, and a distraction.”
Well what about the mayor himself? He is an even bigger issue.
Emanuel said the buck stops with him. We believe the buck hasn’t stopped yet and that in coming days more mischief or criminality will be exposed.
