Should Rahm Emmanuel Resign?

A Chicago coverup

Posted on December 2, 2015 by Bob Livingston

After more than a year of coverup, dissembling, foot-dragging, hemming and hawing, evidence-tampering by the Chicago political establishment and a big payoff, Cook County prosecutor Anita Alvarez finally charged Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke with murder for gunning down 17-year-old Laquan McDonald on Oct. 20, 2014.

McDonald was high on PCP and carrying a knife while walking down a Chicago street when he was confronted by police. But he wasn’t acting violently, and he made no threatening gestures toward Van Dyke or any other officer when Van Dyke unloaded on him.

The shooting — which occurred as a grand jury was hearing testimony on the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; as video of Eric Garner being choked to death by a New York police officer was going viral; and, more importantly, as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was heading into a contested re-election campaign — created a lot of problems that needed to be swept under the rug. So Chicago officials pulled out the big brooms.

First, police dash cam video of the shooting was squirreled away under the cover of “ongoing police investigation.” In the face of media Freedom of Information Act requests, Emanuel turned to the courts to block its release. And then there’s the case of the missing 86 minutes of surveillance video from a nearby Burger King — video that was confiscated by police and apparently erased.

In April, the city, recognizing Emanuel’s tenuous position, as well as that of the police superintendent, considering the highly charged atmosphere surrounding police brutality cases (some of them amped up by President Barack Obama and then-Attorney Criminal Eric Holder), agreed to pay off McDonald’s family to the tune of $5 million with the stipulation that the dash cam video remain concealed.

Once a judge ordered the dash cam video released and Emanuel and company ran out of options, Van Dyke was finally charged with murder. But for more than a year, a man who fired as many as 16 rounds — and was reloading fire more when another officer stopped him — into a teenager who was walking away from him was allowed to continue “policing” Chicago streets.

The New York Times notes that at the time, “Mayor Emanuel was fighting for re-election in a tight race. Superintendent McCarthy wanted to keep his job. Ms. Alvarez needed the good will of the police union for her coming re-election campaign and probably wished to shield the police officers who bring her cases and testify in court.”

All of this highlight