Loretta Lynch launches civil rights investigation of Chicago police
Inquiry will look at race, use of force and accountability, says U.S. attorney general
The U.S. Justice Department saysit will investigate Chicago's police department following protests over the2014shooting death of a black teenager, on the same day local prosecutors said they would not seek charges in another police-shooting case.
Attorney General LorettaLynch said the investigation will focus in particular on use of force and deadly force, including racial, ethnic and other disparities in use of force, and its systems of accountability.
"Our goal in this investigation ... is not to focus on individuals but to improve systems," she said ata Mondaymorning news conference.
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The civil rights probe was opened after a preliminary review, said Lynch, who was joinedby ZacharyFardon, the U.S. Attorney in Chicago, andVanitaGupta, the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
Itfollows others recently in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, and comes as the police department and Mayor Rahm Emanuel are under intense scrutiny over their handling of the October 2014 death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder on Nov. 24, more than a year after the killing and just hours before the release of police dashboard camera footage showing the officer shooting the teenager 16 times.
The video shows McDonald veering away from officers on a four-lane street when Van Dyke, seconds after exiting his squad car, opens fire from close range. The officer continues shooting after McDonald crumples to the ground and is barely moving. The video does not include sound, which authorities have not explained.
The Chicago City Council signed off on a $5 million settlement with McDonald's family even before the family filed a lawsuit, and city officials fought in court for months to keep the video from being released publicly. The city's early efforts to suppress its release coincided with Emanuel's re-election campaign, when the mayor was seeking African-American votes in a tight race.
Since the release of the video, Emanuel forced Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to resign and formed a task force to examine the police department. But the calls for the mayor to resign something he said he won't do have grown louder from protesters.
EmanuelsaidMonday that Lynch would have the city's "complete co-operation."
No charges in Johnson's death
Two hours after Lynch's briefing, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez gave a detailed presentation to reporters explaining why she would not seek charges in another 2014 police shooting death of a black man.
But Michael Oppenheimer, an attorney for Ronald Johnson III's family, called Alvarez' explanation a "joke," and protests over the shooting were expected in the city later Monday evening.
Alvarez, who has been under fire for her handling of the McDonald case, said that 25-year-oldJohnson was holding a gun and fleeing arrest when he was shot by Officer George Hernandez on Oct. 12, 2014.
WARNING: Graphic video content
Prosecutors on Monday showed police car dashboard video to reporters and played audiotapes of police radio communications and 911 emergency calls.
The grainy video, which has no audio, showed Hernandez firing at Johnson as he runs into a park. Alvarez said that Johnson had been asked repeatedly by multiple officers to drop his weapon, and that a 9-millimetresemi-automatic pistol was found with Johnson after he was shot.
Prosecutors showed reporters an image with a red-coloured circle around Johnson's hand, saying that forensic experts clarified images of a weapon.
Oppenheimer said that Johnson did not have a gun and mocked Alvarez for relying on an Independent Police Review Authority investigation of the case. Emanuel ousted the head of IPRA over the weekend.
Alvarez said officers were at the scene due to an earlier shooting. Another officer had tried to arrest Johnson, but he had pulled away, knocking the officer over, before running off, Alvarez said.
Alvarez said that based on a review of the evidence and the law, "the prosecution could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the actions of Officer Hernandez were not reasonable and permissible."
Responding to questions about why Johnson was shot in the back, Alvarez said Johnson could have turned and fired at Hernandez or other officers, and that his gun was linked to a 2013 shooting.
The University of Chicago said last month that an analysis by its civil rights and police accountability clinic found of 56,000 complaints against Chicago police but only a fraction led to disciplinary action.
And of 409 shootings involving Chicago police since September 2007, only two have led to allegations against an officer being found credible, the Chicago Tribune reported, citing data from the Independent Police Review Authority.
With files from Associated Press
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