Chicago mayor agrees: 7 police officers should be fired over Laquan McDonald shooting

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Monday he supported police Supt. Eddie Johnson’s decision to seek the firing of seven officers for allegedly lying about the fatal 2014 police shooting of Laquan McDonald.

The comments were Emanuel’s first public remarks since Johnson’s announcement last week that he would move to terminate the officers after reports filed about the shooting clashed with images captured on video of white Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting black teen McDonald. The mayor reiterated his oft-repeated position that he was giving the superintendent authority to handle the hot-button situation himself.

“I would say this is obviously an issue for the Police Department and I have confidence in the process the superintendent took and the general direction,” he said when asked whether the seven officers’ due process had been violated.

As to whether the firings should have included more police, including supervisors who initially ruled Van Dyke followed proper procedures in shooting McDonald 16 times, Emanuel said: “I’m not sure what to comment in the sense of more investigations. I think the superintendent took the right actions and that’s why I support them.”

“The last thing, I’m going to be cautious, because the mayor speaking up about what other investigations should be done. They’ll be done on the merits and whether they’re worthy,” he added while talking to reporters at an event at a school in the South Shore neighborhood about air conditioners in classrooms.

Emanuel also was asked about former police Supt. Garry McCarthy recently saying that moving to fire the officers could jeopardize the ongoing criminal investigation against Van Dyke, who has been charged with murder in McDonald’s death.

Emanuel fired McCarthy late last year, saying the superintendent had become a distraction amid widespread protests in the weeks after the court-ordered release of the police dashboard camera video that showed Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times as the 17-year-old walked in the street with a knife.

“Actually, I’m not going to respond to that question,” Emanuel said. “My attitude is, and I said this before, I think the superintendent took the right actions, gave him the latitude to take the right actions that he believed was appropriate and he made clear the ultimate goal here was to restore trust in the Police Department and to also restore trust in the community. Because that’s ultimately how we get public safety.”

Dashcam video contradicted numerous statements given by officers about the threat posed by McDonald, who was carrying a knife with a 3-inch blade, had PCP in his system and was suspected of breaking into vehicles.

Johnson’s announcement came after he received a report generated by a six-month investigation by the office of city Inspector Gen. Joseph Ferguson into the shooting.

As anticipation built last week inside City Hall and the Police Department about how Johnson would act on Ferguson’s report on the October 2014 shooting, the mayor repeatedly said he would stand behind the superintendent’s decision.

Emanuel, a notorious micromanager, said he had built a “Chinese wall” between his office and the Police Department to keep politics out of the ruling. And he made the case he was in a no-win position, arguing reporters would pillory him if he took the lead in calling for officers to be fired.

John Byrne writes for the Chicago Tribune.