Four years after former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shot and killed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, Judge Vincent Gaughan sentenced Van Dyke to 6 3/4 years in prison, but he will serve less than four of those years. These most recent confrontations in a continuous series of clashes between the Chicago Police Department and the people it is supposed to serve are at the center of years of activism and protest in Chicago. CPD, courts, and the community have all been affected by this scandal.
People have grown used to the government-ordered killings of unarmed black males by the worst of the police officers, not the finest.
On Monday, there will be no criminal charges brought against Jason Van Dyke, the former Chicago police officer accused of murdering Laquan McDonald.
According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, “the family agreed not to seek a second prosecution” after speaking with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
According to the press release, the standard of proof for federal charges against Van Dyke would have been substantially higher than for state court allegations against him.
According to the Justice Department’s press release, federal prosecutors “would have to establish not only that Mr. Van Dyke acted with the purposeful and explicit intent to do what the law bans, but also that his actions were not the product of terror, fear, ignorance, or bad judgment.” Prosecutors must establish beyond a reasonable doubt what Officer Van Dyke was thinking when he used fatal force, and that he was aware that it was excessive.
In 2018, Van Dyke was found guilty in Chicago of second-degree murder and aggravated violence and sentenced to 81 months in prison. He was shown on surveillance footage shooting the boy 16 times. In February, the ex-officer was freed from jail after serving less than half of the time he was sentenced to.
Activists, civil rights groups, and others who were outraged by what they viewed as a light penalty for Van Dyke’s release called on federal prosecutors to re-file charges against him.
That critics would not be satisfied with another prosecution was hinted at by the leak. Even if Van Dyke is found guilty again, a federal court will take into account his time previously served in jail and his exemplary behavior while there, according to the report.
In light of these facts, a second prosecution might hurt the remarkable results that have already been accomplished,” the announcement adds.
It was also pointed out by the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois that Van Dyke’s arrest and conviction—he was the first Chicago police officer in 50 years to be prosecuted for an on-duty shooting—led to a slew of improvements in the police department’s policies and practices.
As an example, police shooting videos must be revealed within 60 days; Chicago fought for months to keep the footage showing McDonald’s death from being released before a judge ordered the city to do so.
Although the identity of Officer Jason Van Dyke was not made public until more than a year after the shooting that killed Michael McDonald, the city now rapidly names police involved in shootings, often within weeks.
Body-worn cameras, de-escalation training, implicit bias training, early intervention systems, the prohibition of chokeholds, and civilian supervision have been widely supported by political leaders and activists since the 2014 tragedy. With the “Black Lives Matter” movement, there have been open demonstrations and marches until this day.
