Top Chicago police brass defended Laquan McDonald shooting, records show...

stringer bell

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/laquanmcdonald/ct-laquan-mcdonald-shooting-inspector-general-report-met-20161222-story.html

Days after Chicago police Officer Jason Van ? shot Laquan McDonald 16 times, top brass watched a video of the fatal shooting at a meeting in which "everyone agreed" the shooting was justified, a lieutenant who attended the meeting said in sworn testimony.

Newly obtained documents of the city's Office of Inspector General investigation into the fatal shooting show that the department, from beat cops to command-level officials, quickly came to Van ? 's defense, even after viewing dashboard camera video at the scene that contradicted officers' accounts. Command-level officers raised few concerns and signed off on their reports, the inspector general's investigation found.

"There was never no question whether the shooting was justified," Lt. Osvaldo Valdez told investigators with the city's Office of Inspector General about the meeting of the top brass. "Everyone agreed that Officer Van ? used the force necessary to eliminate the threat, and that's pretty much it."

Among those who huddled at police headquarters for the meeting, about 10 days after the shooting in October 2014, was then-Deputy Chief Eddie Johnson, who was promoted to superintendent after Garry McCarthy was fired in the fallout of the video's release. Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi acknowledged that Johnson was at the meeting but said the superintendent "strongly disagrees" with Valdez's characterization of the briefing. Guglielmi declined to elaborate and Johnson referred questions to the spokesman.

The details about the meeting are buried in thousands of pages of records obtained by the Chicago Tribune that document the inspector general's investigation and its findings that numerous officers at the scene falsified police reports and sought to cover up the facts of McDonald's killing.

The documents also contain Van ? 's first-person account of why he shot McDonald.

"I think he's going to try and take my life away from me," Van ? told an investigator two days later.

When challenged in recent months about discrepancies between the video and their accounts, top officials as well as rank-and-file cops stood their ground, saying they had accurately described what happened the night McDonald was shot.

The records raise questions about Johnson's response to the inspector general's findings against his command officers.

The documents revealed that the inspector general recommended firing Chief of Detectives Eugene Roy and Deputy Chief David McNaughton in addition to nine lower-ranking officers. Inspector General Joseph Ferguson found that Roy, who had supervised the department's investigation into McDonald's shooting, was "incompetent in the performance of his duties."

While Johnson moved to fire several rank-and-file officers, the records show, he didn't act on the recommendation to fire Roy or publicly disclose his role, instead letting him quietly step down as he neared the mandatory age for retirement. McNaughton, the highest-ranking officer at the scene of McDonald's shooting, also retired.

Roy declined to comment, while McNaughton could not be reached.

Officers recommended for firing by the inspector general and their lawyers either could not be reached for comment or declined to talk, except for Van ? 's lawyer, Daniel Herbert, who said Van ? told the truth.

Herbert said Johnson's decisions about whom to seek to fire reflect an unwillingness to lay responsibility on command officers. He pointed to the meeting involving Johnson in which command staff purportedly agreed the shooting was justified.

"Nothing has changed, other than the heat has been turned up in this case," Herbert said.

Exaggerating McDonald's threat

For more than a year, Mayor Rahm Emanuel had fought the release of the video showing the white police officer repeatedly shooting the black teenager as he lay motionless in the street. The release of the video in November 2015 sparked widespread protests and exposed long-simmering grievances over policing in the city, particularly in minority communities.

Hours before the video's release, Cook County prosecutors made the rare move of charging a police officer in a shooting, announcing first-degree murder charges against Van ? . No other officers have been criminally charged in the matter, but a special grand jury is gathering evidence into whether officers orchestrated a cover-up.

McDonald's killing prompted an ongoing U.S. Justice Department investigation into whether the Chicago Police Department has systematically mistreated citizens.

Emanuel has since pushed reforms in police training, departmental rules and discipline. After the mayor fired Superintendent McCarthy, he rejected the three finalists the Chicago Police Board had picked to succeed him.

Instead, Emanuel chose Johnson, an African-American who joined the department in 1988 and had not even sought the superintendent's post.

As City Hall made changes in the department, Ferguson's office was collecting evidence on the Police Department's response to McDonald's shooting.

Ferguson concluded that police made false statements and found that at least one officer engaged in a "code of silence," an unwritten rule that officers should lie to protect a colleague, investigation records show. He also found that the video contradicted official police accounts of McDonald's shooting and that officers exaggerated the threat posed by McDonald.

"The video footage of the shooting shows that, before Van ? shot McDonald, McDonald was walking away from Van ? ..." according to one of the inspector general's findings. "It shows that McDonald did not raise the knife he was holding over his shoulder, did not swing the knife toward the officers in an 'aggressive' manner, nor did he raise his arm toward Van ? as if attacking Van ? ."

Ferguson also found that — despite what officers wrote — the video shows that McDonald fell to the street after being shot and was not trying to get up.

Ferguson's office recommended that the department fire 11 officers in all. In August, Johnson moved to fire Van ? , as well as Officers Daphne Sebastian, Janet Mondragon, Ricardo Viramontes and Sgt. Stephen Franko. Johnson declined to move to fire Officer Dora Fontaine, saying the evidence against her was insufficient.

The other officers — several of them higher-ranking — resigned or retired, including the lead detective on the case, David March.

March told the inspector general that his investigation found that the actions of all the officers were "absolutely proper" and that Van ? was justified in killing McDonald, who had ? in his system and damaged a police car while armed with a knife.

March emphasized to the inspector general's investigators that the department leadership's stance on the shooting shifted after the video was released and that in the meantime several command officers involved in the McDonald case had been promoted.

"Now, they are promoted and I am under investigation for separation from the department?" March asked. "As I said, no one voiced any reservations or concerns to me regarding this incident or this investigation. I was informed the entire command staff concurred with the findings and conclusions of my investigation."

stringer bell

In Van ? 's own words

Among the voluminous records is a transcript of Van ? — for the first time — offering his account of what happened in his own words.

Van ? was interviewed two days after the shooting by an investigator from the Independent Police Review Authority, the beleaguered agency known for clearing police in nearly every shooting.

IPRA investigator Brian Killen, who could not be reached for comment by the Tribune, told the inspector general's office that he had not watched the video of the shooting before questioning Van ? for about 20 minutes.

Van ? , according to a transcript of his account, said that he and his partner that night, Joseph Walsh, responded to a call for assistance from other officers. Van ? saw McDonald as they pulled up to the scene near Pulaski Road and 41st Street on the Southwest Side.

Van ? said McDonald was waving a knife and coming toward him, according to a transcript of the interview. Van ? said he backpedaled.

"He's getting, he's getting closer to me," Van ? said. "I keep on ordering him: 'Drop the knife! Drop the knife! Drop the knife!' He doesn't drop the knife. He's still waving the knife at me. I'm thinking he's, he's going (to) do something to me."

Killen, according to the transcript, asked Van ? what he thought McDonald was going to do.

"I think he's going to try and take my life away from me," Van ? replied.

Van ? emptied all 16 rounds from his semiautomatic Smith & Wesson 9 mm pistol and reloaded before he determined "the threat was eliminated," he said.

In charging Van ? with McDonald's killing, prosecutors said the officer opened fire seconds after exiting his squad car.

The inspector general's report casts doubt on the accounts given by Van ? and the other officers.

In Officer Mondragon's case, the inspector general highlighted her claim that she missed key parts of the shooting, in part because she was putting a police vehicle in park. Van ? took about 14 seconds to empty his pistol, officials said.

Under questioning about the details of the shooting, Mondragon responded nearly 150 times that she did not recall, according to the report.

Mondragon did, however, remember there being pizza at the police station afterward.

"It defies belief that Mondragon does not remember whether or not she had seen anyone shot, but has a clear recollection of pizza," the inspector general's report stated.

Alleged witness intimidation

Multiple witnesses told the inspector general that detectives investigating the shooting refused to accept their accounts of what happened and threatened them. None of the 11 officers named in disciplinary recommendations so far were found to have intimidated witnesses.

Witness Alma Benitez, for example, said she saw McDonald walking up the street from a nearby Burger King restaurant. As Benitez was readying to film with her phone, she heard gunshots and looked up, she said.

"I kept hearing gunshots, and then I yelled, 'Stop shooting! He's dead already!'" she said.

Benitez is suing the department, alleging she was detained and pressured to change her story.

Jose Torres, a motorist who said police shooed him away from the scene, told inspector general investigators he was talking to his wife on his cellphone when shots rang out. His wife heard the gunfire, he said.

Torres told investigators that McDonald appeared to be turning away from officers when he was shot. Torres said he grew upset in his car when he saw the shooting continue after McDonald fell to the pavement.

"I cussed in the car," he said. "I'm like, 'Why in the f--- are they still shooting him if he is on the ground?'"

Torres said he contacted IPRA a few days after the shooting when police said McDonald had lunged at the officers.

"I couldn't live with myself," he told inspector general investigators. "I have two kids, two boys and they're about (McDonald's) age. If something like that would happen to my kids, I would wish somebody would come forward and say something."

In March 2015, detectives completed reports that repeated the contentions of Van ? and the other officers. The police reports were prepared by Detective March, Sgt. Daniel Gallagher and Lt. Anthony Wojcik, records show. All three left the department earlier this year, according to department records.

Earlier this month, the Inspector General's office went to court to try to force Wojcik to abide by a subpoena and testify in the office's investigation. Court records show that Wojcik objected because he is no longer a city employee.

His lawyer, Darren O'Brien, said Thursday that the Inspector General's office missed its chance to interview him before he retired in May.

"If he's so important, why didn't they talk to him when he worked there?" O'Brien asked. "Essentially, they waited too long," he said.

stringer bell

Supervisors sign off

The inspector general's investigation sought to hold command staff accountable in addition to the patrol officers.

On the night of the shooting, McNaughton, a deputy chief of patrol, was in bed before he received a call from Johnson informing him that he needed to go to the scene as the department's "on-call incident commander," records show. As the highest-ranking officer there, McNaughton's duties were to take charge of the scene, walk IPRA investigators through what had happened and interview Van ? .

The next day, McNaughton wrote in a report that the shooting was justified, records show.

"Officer Van ? fired his weapon in fear of his life when the offender while armed with a knife continued to approach and refused all verbal direction," McNaughton wrote in a report.

In recommending that McNaughton be fired, the inspector general alleged that he had approved false police reports submitted by Van ? , Walsh and a third officer and revised a police news release to falsely state that McDonald was shot after he "continued to approach" the officers.

"I believed it that night and I believe it now, and if the definition of the word 'approach' is to come nearer to, then I don't think I was imprecise in that language," McNaughton told investigators. "I wish someone else could write statements. They could probably have crafted that better than I could, but it is there."

McNaughton, according to records, told investigators that he was fatigued that night after working long hours that day escorting President Barack Obama's motorcade and that may have affected his decision-making.

McNaughton retired this summer.

Roy, who joined the department in 1977 and supervised the detectives on the case, drew withering criticism from the inspector general's office.

Roy went to the scene and watched video of the shooting early on, according to the reports. He later took part in briefings for top command officers at which the video was viewed, the records show.

The inspector general placed blame for the detectives' allegedly false narratives on Roy, though Roy told investigators that responsibility for the reports fell largely to his subordinates.

Nonetheless, he viewed the video with inspector general's investigators and said officers made accurate statements. He maintained that the video showed McDonald brandished the knife at officers and tried to get up after he was shot.

The inspector general disagreed, finding that Roy "let stand reports that contained materially false statements and put forth a false narrative, which served to exaggerate the threat McDonald posed at the time of the shooting."

Roy, however, said the inspector general was wrong to depend so heavily on the video.

"It's been a great deal of concentration on the video; however, that concentration ignores the fact the video is from the back of Laquan McDonald," Roy told the inspector general's investigators. "The videotape that you displayed and that I reviewed with you gentlemen is much farther away from Laquan McDonald than Officer Van ? or Officer Walsh were. The video cannot account for the perceptions and view of those who were actually present."

The inspector general recommended on Aug. 17 that Johnson fire Roy, who was within months of the department's mandatory retirement age of 63, records show.

At the end of August, Johnson moved to fire the lower-ranking officers.

The Tribune, in late August, asked Johnson about Roy's role in the McDonald investigation and whether the department planned to seek to punish him. The superintendent responded that "CPD doesn't comment on open investigations."

Department records show Roy retired Sept. 15.

Roy was among the command officers that Valdez reported attended the meeting about 10 days after the shooting.

But there was an earlier meeting, two days after the shooting, that included then-Superintendent McCarthy, according to Juan Rivera, who at the time was chief of the Bureau of Internal Affairs. At that meeting, Rivera said, top department officials watched the video.

Rivera told the inspector general's investigators that he was concerned by the number of shots, and he suggested to McCarthy after the meeting that Van ? should be stripped of his police powers. McCarthy brushed off the suggestion, Rivera told the inspector general's investigators. Van ? was relieved of his police powers about 10 days after the shooting.

McCarthy could not be reached for comment.

While the Tribune obtained a department document indicating that Johnson was supposed to attend the meeting with McCarthy, he did not, said department spokesman Guglielmi.

Wayne Gulliford, then the department's chief of patrol, missed that meeting, as well, so a second briefing was held to watch the video and discuss the shooting, McNaughton told the inspector general's investigators. That is the meeting that Johnson attended, according to Valdez.

Asked by an inspector general's investigator whether anyone at that meeting voiced questions about the shooting's justification, Valdez replied, "Absolutely not."

Valdez and Gulliford declined to comment.

After his appointment in March as superintendent, Johnson was interviewed by two Tribune reporters who asked about the McDonald shooting.

Johnson acknowledged that he had viewed the video at the time of the shooting, but he demurred at explaining his reaction to the video.

"Did it shock you?" a Tribune reporter asked the new superintendent.

"I've been a cop for 27 years, and I've seen a lot of horrific things, not saying that that was one of them," he said of the McDonald video. "But I've seen a lot, and I know that we can learn a lot from not just that incident but different things that happen all across the city."

Undefeatable

Fire all of them who are still on the force.

Just goes to show that cops should not be overseeing cops.