The wife of the Chicago pig who killed Laquan McDonald says he's not a "monster"…

stringer bell
stringer bell Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited May 2016 in For The Grown & Sexy
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/laquanmcdonald/ct-jason-van-? -wife-laquan-mcdonald-met-20160512-story.html
Officer in Laquan McDonald killing 'not the monster' people think, wife says

When Chicago police Officer Jason Van ? and his wife moved into their raised ranch house 11 years ago, they tore down a red wooden fence that closed off their property and began organizing annual block parties.

Now the curtains in their front room's large picture window are typically closed. Cameras have been added to beef up their home security system. Their two daughters aren't allowed outside alone, and Van ? no longer volunteers at their school chaperoning class field trips or helping build homecoming floats.

His wife, Tiffany, said each day has been a struggle since her husband became, in his lawyer's words, Public Enemy No. 1 for shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times.

In the family's first interview, his wife insisted to the Tribune that Van ? , who is white, is not a trigger-happy, racist cop as he has been portrayed.

Their extended family is diverse and includes a black brother-in-law with whom Van ? is close. He, too, spoke in Van ? 's defense.
And the fatal shooting, indeed, marked the first time Van ? discharged his weapon in the line of duty over 12 years patrolling some of the city's most crime-ravaged neighborhoods, public records show.

"He is not the monster the world now sees him as," Tiffany Van ? said. "He prays for Laquan and his family. (The shooting) is not something he ever wanted to do."

The Tribune has also looked deeper into Van ? 's time as an officer — including a record of complaints of mistreatment that one criminal justice advocate said "stands out like a sore thumb." And while McDonald's great-uncle, the Rev. Marvin Hunter, said he feels compassion for Van ? 's family, he has little sympathy for the officer. Van ? acted as "judge, jury and executioner," said Hunter, a family spokesman.


The public outrage over the disturbing video of McDonald's October 2014 shooting has shaken the Police Department to its foundation, and the U.S. Justice Department is taking an unprecedented look at questionable longtime police practices that a mayoral task force recently found to be rooted in racial disparity and discrimination.

At the center of the firestorm is Van ? , 38, who has been suspended without pay or benefits since he was charged last fall with first-degree murder. He has declined to comment on the advice of his attorney, but with Van ? 's approval, his wife met a Tribune reporter in their modest Southwest Side home — filled with framed photos of the couple with their two middle-school-age daughters during happier times.

For more than three hours, Tiffany Van ? spoke of what it is like to live in a fishbowl with a man she described as a loving husband and father and a "kind, gentle soul."

Still, she acknowledged her husband is not the same man she married 14 years ago. The violence police confront on a daily basis takes a toll, she said, and the couple was in marriage counseling before the shooting. The tragedy, she said, has brought them closer as they fight to survive an uncertain future.

"My hope is that people out there, the general public, the people who are hearing only one side, they will see the human side to my husband," she said. "He is not the person as he is being portrayed."

Suburbia to Englewood

The Tribune has told the tragic story of McDonald's life, born to an absent father and teen mother ill-equipped to care for him and exposed to childhood neglect and abuse. A state ward, McDonald embraced the drugs and gangs that saturated his West Side neighborhood. Diagnosed with learning disabilities and complex mental health problems, he had school expulsions and drug arrests and was in and out of juvenile detention.

Yet many child welfare officials found the 17-year-old boy funny, charismatic and always protective of his younger sister. He showed signs of resilience, giving those officials hope he might defeat his brutal environment.

But beyond what can be gleaned from Van ? 's personnel file and other public records, little has been reported about the personal side of the man whose decision in those few fateful seconds has fueled such incendiary emotions.

Van ? grew up in the western suburbs, about a half-hour west of Chicago but far from the brutal landscape of McDonald's world. His parents still live in the house where Van ? and his younger sister were raised in a working-class neighborhood.

Van ? 's father, Owen, who provided a brief statement to the Tribune and answered a few follow-up questions, described his only son as a kid who loved being outdoors, playing baseball and basketball, riding his bike from dawn to dusk. He did woodworking projects with his grandfather and fished with his dad. His mother, Susanne, still has the Christmas ornaments he made as a child.

"We will continue to support (our son) as best we can and we hope people will consider all the facts and circumstances in this case," wrote his father, 74, a retired electrician who has accompanied his son to every court appearance, often passing by angry protesters who he said shouted threats and once damaged his pickup truck. "Jason worked hard under often very dangerous conditions and put his life at risk for many years protecting the people of Chicago. What happened was a terrible tragedy, but our son is not a murderer."

At Hinsdale South High School, he played on the football team and participated in band, playing trumpet and baritone before his 1996 graduation.

Van ? met his wife 16 years ago when the two worked at the same company in Aurora. They complemented each other, she said, since he's an introvert and she is outgoing, independent and social. They married about two years later.

Tiffany Van ? said her husband didn't grow up wanting to be a cop. He planned to follow in his dad's footsteps in the trades. But a history buff with an interest in the military, he took some criminal justice courses in college and decided on a career in law enforcement.

When Van ? applied to be a Chicago police officer in 2000, a woman who lived across the street from his childhood home wrote a reference letter still contained in his personnel file. Peggy Nemec described Van ? 's kindness to her son, Timmy, who had Down syndrome. Both mother and son have since died, but Nemec's husband, John, praised Van ? .

"You can go around the neighborhood and ask anyone. No one will have anything bad to say about Jason," said Nemec, 83, who after watching the video echoed an opinion offered by many who know and support the embattled officer. "The kid was doing his job. He snapped or something. That can happen working in those kinds of conditions for so long. I just hope he gets a fair shake."

Van ? graduated from the police academy in 2002. His wife, 35, a fitness instructor, smiled at the memory of her husband walking across the stage to collect his certificate.

"That was one of the proudest days of my life," she said. "He knew he was going to be able to do something that would hopefully make a difference."

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  • stringer bell
    stringer bell Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭

    In 2012, while working full time, Van ? completed his bachelor's degree in criminal justice at St. Xavier University, according to the school and his personnel file.

    In more than a dozen years on the street, Van ? worked at night in mostly high-crime districts, including Englewood and Chicago Lawn. He was picked to take part in a targeted response unit that aggressively went into neighborhoods hit by spikes in violent crimes before police brass abandoned that strategy.

    Tiffany Van ? said he always called at their daughters' bedtime to say good night. She got used to sleeping alone and, she said, in time overcame fears he would not make it home safely.

    "He has a very good head on his shoulders," she said. "He does not run to danger."

    She said her husband rarely opened up to her about all the violence. Department records show he's been spit on, kicked, punched, surrounded by an angry mob and threatened at least twice with knives.

    Instead he chose to share with her the good moments, including times he helped lock up a guy "causing terror to a neighborhood, taking back a park" so the kids could play on the basketball court, she said.

    Once, some six years ago, Van ? came home about 2 a.m. with a "mutt mix" he kept noticing roaming the streets alone in the cold while he was out on patrol in Englewood. She's been the family dog ever since.

    But Tiffany Van ? said her and her husband's opposite personalities at times clashed during their marriage, and the two were in counseling before McDonald's shooting. She said his years internalizing the bad he saw — ? children, shooting victims, car crash fatalities — made him even more closed-off emotionally.

    "When you start out and you're so optimistic about helping others ... but unfortunately, people don't want the help any longer or they don't trust you to be able to help them, it does change you," she said. "It doesn't make him a bad person ... but it does take a toll and does make a person different.

    "His favorite thing, he used to say, was he loved to drive through a neighborhood and see someone wave to him and he'd wave back," she said. "And unfortunately, as time went by, that got less and less and less because the crime and violence got worse and worse and worse."

    Warning signs?

    Van ? has received 53 commendations over his career, according to his personnel file. His wife said one of his proudest moments came in January 2013 when he helped secure the parade route at President Barack Obama's inauguration in Washington.

    "He was never considered a guy who was violent," said Richard Aztlan, a former Chicago police sergeant who until his 2010 retirement supervised Van ? when he picked up extra assignments with the mass transit unit. "As a sergeant, there were times I had to worry about certain guys. He wasn't one of those."

    But there were complaints, lots of them. Under the Police Department's accountability system, however, Van ? was never disciplined, his records showed. That accountability system has come under criticism for being biased in favor of the police and flawed at every level, with police often enforcing a code of silence, unions protecting them from rigorous scrutiny and an ineffective review process.

    Van ? also was sued three times, twice successfully. In a fourth case — the McDonald shooting — the city paid out $5 million to the family before a lawsuit was filed.

    That puts him in unflattering company. Earlier this year, a Tribune investigation found that only 1 percent of the city's more than 12,000 officers had at least three legal settlements or financial judgments in which the city paid out money over a 6 1/2-year period, from January 2009 through July 2015. More than 4 out every 5 officers weren't named in a single such lawsuit.

    Over a slightly different 6 1/2-year period than the one in the Tribune investigation, the city paid out three times in cases involving Van ? . In addition to the $5 million for the McDonald shooting, they were:

    A federal jury in October 2009 awarded a black motorist $350,000 for injuries he suffered in a traffic stop. In a Tribune interview last year, Ed Nance said that after Van ? 's partner slammed him over the hood of a squad car, Van ? handcuffed him so violently that it cost him thousands of dollars in medical bills and lost wages to repair tendons in his shoulder and rotator cuff. Nance did not have prior criminal convictions.

    In February the city settled a lawsuit involving Van ? and another officer for nearly $100,000. After his arrest in April 2014 in a domestic dispute, Darren Clemons said the two officers beat him while he was handcuffed, fracturing his left eye socket. Clemons, who has an extensive criminal record, showed the Tribune medical documentation, but the arrest report claimed another man said he punched Clemons to restrain him before police arrived. Van ? 's attorney argued that the city simply settled to make the case involving its most infamous cop go away.

    Van ? "shouldn't have been a cop," Clemons said.

    In the third suit, a federal judge in 2010 dismissed a black teenager's claim against six police officers, including Van ? . The lawsuit alleged excessive force and other civil rights violations for an August 2007 arrest on gun possession charges that ended in the teen's acquittal. Another officer handled the actual arrest of Denzel Nelson, who also had a clean record, but the unsuccessful suit alleged that Van ? lied to protect the other officer.


    Officers who use force during an arrest are supposed to document it in what's called a "tactical response report." Van ? never self-reported the arrests of Nance, Nelson or Clemons, but he filled out nearly two dozen tactical response reports when he used force from 2004 until he shot McDonald in October 2014, according to department records reviewed by the Tribune. Three of those arrestees allegedly had knives, one had a history of mental hospitalizations and several were accused of being combative, intoxicated or on drugs.

    In one report, Van ? described a woman as ? and violent after he arrested her in August 2008 following a 4 a.m. skirmish inside a Bucktown restaurant while the officer was off-duty.

    But Erica Torres told the Tribune she hadn't done anything wrong. She later had her misdemeanor battery arrest expunged.

    "He manhandled me," Torres said. "He just had this blank stare on his face."

    In nearly all of the 22 incidents in which he admitted using force, he checked a box indicating he used "take down/emergency handcuffing" measures. A few times he reported using pepper spray as well as his police baton to fend off a mob after he said one officer was punched and another grabbed.

  • stringer bell
    stringer bell Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Police often attribute the frequency of citizen complaints and lawsuits against officers to tough assignments in high-crime areas. But Craig Futterman, director of the University of Chicago's Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, said many officers in those districts haven't been the subject of repeated complaints.

    Van ? has at least 20 formal complaints over his career, including McDonald's fatal shooting, according to department records. Eleven involved allegations of excessive force. Many of those who complained were minorities. In some cases, a full record of the complaint was not available. But in two separate incidents, he was accused of making a racial slur.

    "There can be innocent explanations for lots of these things," Futterman said of Van ? . "But, by any metric, he stands out like a sore thumb, and that would tell me I need to investigate and use that information to see if there is something going on."

    Futterman and the nonprofit journalistic organization the Invisible Institute have compiled the most extensive database of Chicago police misconduct complaints, tens of thousands in all. The researchers found that more than half of the department's officers from 2011 to 2015 didn't have a single complaint, and more than 80 percent had four or fewer.


    Futterman said more research is underway to compare officers with similar assignments. Aztlan, who was a Chicago cop for 32 years, argued that is a key missing factor in the statistical comparison.

    "If you work at headquarters shuffling papers for 20 years, you don't get a lot of complaints," he said. "However, if you work in specialized units that are aggressive or areas that (Van ? ) worked in, you're going to get complaints. Gangbangers don't like getting arrested. They know (a complaint) is the most effective retaliation against a police officer."

    'Tunnel vision'

    Before Van ? arrived the night of the shooting, officers trailed McDonald for nearly half a mile, from a trucking yard where he was breaking into vehicles through the parking lot of a Burger King and onto busy Pulaski Road. As the other officers awaited backup units armed with Tasers, they tried to corral the teen to keep him away from passers-by. At one point, McDonald used a knife to slash the front tire and scratch the windshield of a squad car trying to block his path, police said.

    Van ? heard the radio dispatches as he and his partner drove to the scene. In his written reports, Van ? later said he believed McDonald was attacking him with the knife. He said McDonald raised it across his chest and over his shoulder, an accusation police dashcam video showed to be false.

    The video also highlighted inconsistencies from other officers who portrayed the teen as more menacing than what the footage depicted. Prosecutors said it shows Van ? opened fire six seconds after exiting his squad car. They said Van ? emptied his gun within 15 seconds and was reloading when his partner told him to hold his fire.

    For 13 of those seconds, McDonald was already lying on the street.

    The results of McDonald's autopsy found he had the hallucinogenic drug ? in his system.

    Hunter, McDonald's great-uncle, said the video speaks for itself.

    "This was a murder," he said. "This was an assassination."

    But Van ? 's attorney, Daniel Herbert, maintained that the officer feared for his life. The video — which contains no audio — hardly tells the full story, the attorney said. Not the 10 minutes of police response that led up to the shooting. Certainly not his client's view of McDonald from where he was standing that night, Herbert said. A defense expert in computer reconstruction of the scene is expected to testify.

    Another fatal police shooting back in 2005 may offer some insight into Van ? 's reaction to McDonald. In a 2008 deposition for the ongoing lawsuit, Van ? described the "tunnel vision" he got when rushing to the scene after he heard another officer might be injured. He compared the experience to being in a fight, blocking out everything else as your body goes into a "fight or flight" mode.

    Many have questioned whether the color of McDonald's skin affected Van ? 's judgment. His brother-in-law, Keith Thompson, who is black and lives in Kane County, said it's an unfair assumption. Thompson, who is married to one of Tiffany Van ? 's sisters, said he's never detected racism in him.

    "It wasn't premeditated murder, and it's not motivated by racism," said Thompson, 33, who has seen the video. "He didn't go out trying to ? someone that day. That's not who he is, and I know it kills him. He has to carry that around the rest of his life."


  • stringer bell
    stringer bell Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Life in a fishbowl

    Tiffany Van ? said she has not watched the video yet, but she knows she must before the trial.

    It won't change her steadfast belief in her husband's innocence, she said. She said this tragedy has brought them closer as they "close ranks" and try to keep life as normal as possible for their daughters.

    "I would not want anyone to have to walk in my shoes or my husband's," she said. "But unfortunately, it's the path we have to walk down right now, and we're doing the best we can."

    In their home, many photos displayed on walls and front room tables capture treasured family moments. Every Father's Day, the girls give him a T-shirt with the words "World's Greatest Dad," with each of their handprints in paint.

    "He does their hair. He takes them to dance class. He loves the daddy-daughter dances," Tiffany Van ? said. "Those are his favorite moments. Everything is his 'baby girls.' His whole world is his girls."

    Now, she said, he rarely goes out. The couple live in constant fear, she said, and both are continually looking over their shoulder for fear someone might make good on threats to harm them. They shut down their social media accounts after she said they received threats of death and ? .

    Roger Raymond, 77, a next-door neighbor, said they're a good family who don't deserve to live in fear.

    "When I see him having to walk his daughter a block for safety just so she can go to her friends— it's a shame," said Raymond, a retired meat cutter who has viewed the video. "I can't imagine being in a position like that."

    When asked about the couple's hardest days, Van ? 's wife described three in particular: the day after the shooting when she first learned her husband had taken a life; a year later when her husband was stripped of his police powers and was charged with first-degree murder; and the moment she watched him walk away from her as he turned himself in at the Cook County Jail.

    He was strong in that moment, she said, but the night before he wept when telling their daughters he'd be gone for a little while but that he loved them. He spent six nights in custody before his parents came up with the $150,000 bail.

    As for how the children have reacted, their oldest is like her father, the wife said, and internalizes her feelings but understands what's happening. Tiffany Van ? thought their other daughter, five years younger, was less aware, but then a boy in class called her father a murderer, and the girl tearfully asked her mother why.

    "You know who daddy is," she reassured her daughter. "Daddy hasn't changed. Daddy is still daddy."

    It's been six months since her husband was suspended without pay and benefits. Finding a job in Chicago when your name is Jason Van ? is not easy and, the wife said, both have left jobs because of the negative publicity and threats. He is doing janitorial work at the police union hall. Even that sparked controversy when it became public. She said the couple is struggling financially but getting by as best they can with some help from family members.

    She said her husband was getting counseling to help him cope in the shooting's aftermath, but that ended when they lost their city insurance coverage. Van ? , described by his wife as a devout Roman Catholic, talks to his parish priest regularly, she said, and is taking part in a support group for officers involved in shootings.

    Brian Warner, the group's chairman and a former Chicago police officer, survived being shot on duty in 2011. He and his partner returned fire and killed the offender. Warner said he struggled with post-traumatic stress afterward, was declared unfit for duty and was put on disability.

    "The first time I met Jason I saw myself," Warner said. "As soon as I shook his hand and looked into his eyes, I saw myself, and his situation is even worse because it's so magnetized and politicized. He's continually trying to get to a place where he can be a good husband, father and son and be a productive member of society again."

    If her husband is acquitted, Tiffany Van ? said, they'll likely leave their home, family and Chicago to start anew. If he is convicted of first-degree murder, he faces the possibility of a lengthy prison term.

    Van ? worries about missing his daughters' graduations, weddings and other significant milestones, his wife said. But she said her husband is fully aware and troubled that many in the public believe that prison is exactly where he belongs.

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  • stringer bell
    stringer bell Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
    A federal jury in October 2009 awarded a black motorist $350,000 for injuries he suffered in a traffic stop. In a Tribune interview last year, Ed Nance said that after Van ? 's partner slammed him over the hood of a squad car, Van ? handcuffed him so violently that it cost him thousands of dollars in medical bills and lost wages to repair tendons in his shoulder and rotator cuff. Nance did not have prior criminal convictions.
    Van ? has at least 20 formal complaints over his career, including McDonald's fatal shooting, according to department records. Eleven involved allegations of excessive force. Many of those who complained were minorities. In some cases, a full record of the complaint was not available. But in two separate incidents, he was accused of making a racial slur.
    Their extended family is diverse and includes a black brother-in-law with whom Van ? is close. He, too, spoke in Van ? 's defense.
    Many have questioned whether the color of McDonald's skin affected Van ? 's judgment. His brother-in-law, Keith Thompson, who is black and lives in Kane County, said it's an unfair assumption. Thompson, who is married to one of Tiffany Van ? 's sisters, said he's never detected racism in him.

    "It wasn't premeditated murder, and it's not motivated by racism," said Thompson, 33, who has seen the video. "He didn't go out trying to ? someone that day. That's not who he is, and I know it kills him. He has to carry that around the rest of his life."

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    There always has to be that one ? ready to cape for whitey no matter what...
  • WhoisDonG???
    WhoisDonG??? Members Posts: 2,573 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Bruh I'm going to keep it 100 most these police are scared to lose they life so if they perceive you as a threat they blowing at your ass period. It's the reality those dudes have family and they trying to back to them. Reality is these clowns are scared as hell. It's like soldiers in the Middle East they so nervous and paranoid they opening up on you if you bat a eye the wrong way. In essence these type of people shouldn't be officers or soldiers. If you scared go home.
  • mc317
    mc317 Members Posts: 5,548 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Bruh I'm going to keep it 100 most these police are scared to lose they life so if they perceive you as a threat they blowing at your ass period. It's the reality those dudes have family and they trying to back to them. Reality is these clowns are scared as hell. It's like soldiers in the Middle East they so nervous and paranoid they opening up on you if you bat a eye the wrong way. In essence these type of people shouldn't be officers or soldiers. If you scared go home.

    Thats the problem if soldiers did what police did they would be in front of a military tribunal, they cant fire on somebody because they think they have something rules of engagement if they ? are that scary find another job.
  • white sympathizer
    white sympathizer Members Posts: 1,570 ✭✭✭✭
    ? aint nobody finna read all dat ? , cliff notes ?
  • Idiopathic Joker
    Idiopathic Joker Members, Moderators Posts: 45,691 Regulator
    Some articles are too long
  • stringer bell
    stringer bell Members Posts: 26,212 ✭✭✭✭✭
    ? aint nobody finna read all dat ? , cliff notes ?

    I guess you missed all the ? I highlighted in bold...