Sunday, December 6, 2015

Emanuel's repeated backtracking shows he underestimated McDonald video fallout


Please read the Chicago Tribune article and Share with the community.
It's a quick and interesting read.

During the most tumultuous 11-day span of his tenure as Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel has gone from backing his police chief, defending the city's investigation of police shootings and resisting a federal civil rights investigation of his police department to abruptly backtracking on all three positions.

The mayor, who hours before releasing the Laquan McDonald video said that he had asked the "hard questions" and insisted safeguards for police shootings were in place, now says the Chicago Police Department needs "nothing less than complete and total reform."

The arc of the mayor's evolving stances since a judge forced him to release the graphic police video of an African-American teenager being gunned down in the street by a white officer reflects how Emanuel and his aides underestimated the scope of the fallout, from stinging national criticism to local protests calling on him to resign.

The weight of Emanuel's biggest scandal to date has left the usually decisive politician continuously recalibrating his response to the crisis as new information about the case becomes public and pressure for an independent investigation increases. The mayor also faces the challenge of trying to square his police department's long-standing problems with his penchant for downplaying problems and rebutting criticisms with speeches, statistics and press releases claiming improvements on whatever issue is at hand.

As the furor continues, the mayor is seeking to appear less defensive while more openly acknowledging Chicago faces serious police problems.

The latest iteration of that effort came in an op-ed letter from the mayor to the city's newspapers published Friday evening, entitled "Police misconduct in Chicago: I own it; I'll fix it." While the title would suggest a mea culpa, the letter's core is a point-by-point defense of Emanuel's decision to withhold the McDonald video and a pushback against the notion of a cover-up, a narrative that has continued to gain traction.

Public skepticism is only likely to increase after Emanuel's police department late Friday released hundreds of pages of police reports that are dramatically at odds with the dashboard camera video of the shooting. The reports show that at least six officers said that McDonald moved or turned toward police. At least one said McDonald was advancing on the officers in a menacing way and swung his knife at them in an "aggressive, exaggerated manner" before Officer Jason Van Dyke shot the teen. The video of the October 2014 shooting, however, showed McDonald was walking away when he was killed.

In his letter, Emanuel does not address the fact that the initial police reports contradict what's on the video. The mayor wrote that if he had seen the video, he might have "released the tape before the prosecutors had acted." What's left unsaid is that Emanuel's aides briefed him on what the video showed before asking the City Council in April to sign off on a $5 million settlement to McDonald's family, a week after the mayor won re-election.

Emanuel wrote in his letter that he rejected "the suggestion the videotape of the McDonald shooting was withheld from the public because of the election."
Harking back to a phrase a sweater-clad Emanuel used in his famous March campaign ad, the mayor also writes: "At the end of the day, I am the mayor and I own it.

"I take responsibility for what happened and I will fix it," he wrote. "Nothing less than complete and total reform of the system and the culture will meet the standards we have set for ourselves."

Those words contrast with how Emanuel presented the McDonald case 11 days earlier.

On Nov. 24, the mayor and then-police Superintendent Garry McCarthy held a news conference moments before releasing the police dashboard camera video. Standing side by side at the city's police headquarters, the duo defended the Police Department's practices while condemning Van Dyke's actions.

McCarthy talked of a reduction in police shootings, more internal affairs officers, staffing changes and a culture that had changed "in a positive fashion." Asked how he could prevent another Van Dyke shooting, McCarthy responded, "At the end of the day, it's always going to be the judgment in the eyes of the officer, which is why I said that the officer in this case is going to have to account for his actions. I can't do it. Nobody else can. Only he can."

Emanuel stood by his top cop, often deferring to McCarthy to give the answers.
 
When one reporter insisted the mayor step forward and explain whether there was a problem with how officers were investigated and whether a "lack of openness" existed, Emanuel responded by touting the city's two civilian boards overseeing the department. He did not mention that of 409 shootings since the Independent Police Review Authority's formation in September 2007, only two have led to allegations against an officer being found credible, according to the agency.

"Is it perfect? Nothing is perfect," Emanuel said of police oversight. "Do we have the spirit and desire constantly to improve it and make it transparent so people believe that people will be held accountable for their actions? That is what exists."

Emanuel and McCarthy spent most of the 26 minutes behind a lectern portraying Van Dyke as an isolated rogue cop and deflecting questions about systemic problems by calling on Chicagoans to "look within ourselves and reach for the future of the city of Chicago we know we can be," as the mayor put it.

The video went online minutes later. As 24-hour news anchors, newspaper columnists and radio pundits recounted the details of the McDonald case, Emanuel spent seven days out of the public spotlight. Protesters, though, took to the streets, chanting "16 shots!" and shut down Magnificent Mile stores on what's traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year.

Emanuel re-emerged, but only after firing McCarthy and appointing a task force the mayor said would recommend fixes for the city's police problems.

"The horrifying shooting of Mr. McDonald requires more than words of sadness," Emanuel said. "It requires that we act, that we take more concrete steps to prevent such abuses in the future, (and) secure the safety and the rights of all Chicagoans."

During this appearance, in a sweltering briefing room in his fifth floor City Hall office packed with reporters, Emanuel took a step toward acknowledging systemic problems, but still defended moves he said his administration had taken to address police misconduct. The mayor cited "reinvigorated community policing" and "a level of transparency" in releasing police data — a point at odds with the fact that an open records lawsuit led a Cook County judge to order him to release of the video.

"I beg to differ," Emanuel responded to the suggestion he hadn't done much in four-plus years to address the Police Department's lengthy track record of misconduct and excessive force. "There's a long history. We have made progress, but our work is not done."

Hours after the mayor fired McCarthy, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan called for a U.S. Justice Department civil rights investigation of the Police Department's use of excessive and deadly force, its investigation of police shootings and whether Chicago has a pattern of discriminatory policing. "Trust in the Chicago Police Department is broken," Madigan wrote.

The following morning, in an interview with Politico reporters Wednesday, Emanuel called such a broader investigation "misguided," pointing instead to his new task force. That proved to be another miscalculation, as Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton also called for a Justice Department investigation, which was followed by similar requests from U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez.

By Thursday morning, Emanuel had issued a statement seeking to "clarify" his remarks from the day before. Privately, the mayor's aides suggested Emanuel had just misunderstood the questions on the issue the day before. His answers, however, were clear — and the damage was done.

Later, facing a crush of reporters after cutting the ribbon on Google's new West Loop offices, Emanuel offered a more blunt answer: "I own the confusion."

Stay Safe and Alert!!!
Later, Leroy Duncan
Community Representative 
FYI: 

Emanuel's repeated backtracking shows he underestimated McDonald video fallout

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